First Blows of the Civil War 

THE 

TEN YEARS OF PRELIMINARY CONFLICT 

IN THE 

UNITED STATES. 

FROM 1850 TO 1860. 
A CONTEMPORANEOUS EXPOSITION 



PROGRESS OF THE STRUGGLE SHOWN BY PUBLIC RECORDS AND 
PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE. 



LETTERS, NOW FIRST PUBLISHED, 

FROM THE FOLLOWING PERSONS : 

Horace Greeley, Charles A. Dana, Wi. Pitt Fkssenden, Hon. I. Washburn, Jr.. 

Hon. Benj. F. Wade, Gen. Fitz Henry Warren, Joshua R. Giddings, 

Hon. Thomas Corwin. Chief Justice Chase, Wm. H. Seward, 

Count Gurowski, Dr. G. Bailey, Charles Sumner, 

Gen. Wm. Schouler, Truman Smith, Hon. 

E. B. Washburne, and others. 



BY 

JAMES S. PIKE, 

Former V. S. Minister to the Netherlands, 



NEW YORK 
THE AJVL^-RTCAJST J^EIWS COlVUPAIISrY, 

39 ats t d 41 Chambers Street. 



. 



C'OFTKIGHT, 1879, BX JAMES S. PIKE. 






ft - /4< / 23 



* 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



FROM JANUARY TO APRIL, 1850.— PAGES 1 TO 20. 

Will the plan of disunion work? 1 ; Dissolution a folly, 2 ; Practical diffi- 
culties, 3 ; States cannot be allowed to secede, 4 ; Slavery in the Terri- 
tories, 5 ; Abolition in the District of Columbia, 6 ; Mr. Clay's oratory, 6,7 ; 
Jeff. Davis's interruption, 7; Apprehension of disunion, 8 ; General Taylor, 
8, 9 ; Letter from editor Boston Atlas, 9 ; In the midst of a great national 
quarrel, 10 ; Claims of the South, 11 ; Admission of California, 11 ; South 
opposed, 12 ; South blind, 12 ; Disunion means civil war, 13 ; Mr. Clay's 
two days' speech, 13 ; Senator Foote, 14 ; Mr. Webster beseeched, 14 
Makes his famous 7th March speech, 15 ; Mr. Calhoun's last effort, 16 
Governor Seward's speech, 17 ; Brilliant speech from Horace Mann, 18 
The public yawns, 19 ; Death of Mr. Calhoun, 20 ; Eulogies on his char 
acter, 20 ; War in the Whig party, 20. 



APRIL, 1850.-PAGES 20 TO 40. 

General Taylor and the Whig party, 21 ; His administration and the Territorial 
question, 22 ; Mr. Clay and Mr. Webster against him, 23 ; Dangers ahead, 
24 ; Whigs must support the administration, 25 ; Letter from the editor of 
the Boston Courier, 26 ; Is obliged to support Webster, 26 ; Pistols drawn 
in the Senate, 27 ; Mr. Clay's excited appearance, 28 ; The Great Leader, 
28 ; Change of leadership, 29 ; Benton heading the Whigs, 29 ; Foote 
draws a pistol on Benton and flees down the aisle, 30 ; Benton in a rage, 
30 ; Mr. Clay's retreat, 31 ; Old Bullion subsides, 31 ; Letter from editor 
Boston Courier, 32 ; Opposition to General Taylor, 33 ; Insubordination in 
the ranks, 34 ; Some considerations, 35 ; Mr. Clay as an actor, 36 ; His great 
influence, 37 ; Hia overbearing temper, 38 ; General Taylor and his friends, 
39 ; Letter from editor Boston Courier, 40. 



APRIL TO MAY, 1850.— PAGES 40 TO 60. 

Letter from Horace Greeley asking for letters from Washington, 41 ; Letter 
from Wm. Schouler, editor Boston Atlas, describing state of things in Massa- 
chusetts, 42 ; War on General Taylor's administration, 43 ; Division in 
Whig ranks, 44 ; The Omnibus Bill, 44 ; The child of consternation, 45 ; 
Proposes to settle agitation, 46 ; Comments and letter of Mr. Greeley, 
47, 48 ; Offers pay, 48 ; Letters from Mr. Greeley, Locofocos not Democrats, 



iv CONTENTS. 

49 ; Roast baby, 49 ; Proposes to take no liberties, 50 ; Duty of the Whig 
party, 50 ; Reasons for opposing Omnibus Bill, 51 ; Party considerations, 
51 ; Whigs should preserve their unity, 52 ; Should support General 
Taylor's policy, 53 ; What Texas wants, 54 ; Must defeat the Omnibus Bill, 
55 ; Comments by Mr. Greeley, 56 ; Compromise exploded, 56 ; Creates 
great sensation, 57 ; Mr. Greeley on its failure, 57 ; Mr. Clay discomfited, 
58 ; Frowns defiance, 58 ; Fermentation on the Texas question, 59 ; Mr. 
Calhoun's former hopes and present hopes of the slaveholders, 60. 



MAY, 1850.— PAGES 60 TO 80. 

Admission of California, 61 ; Let Congress act on one subject at a time, 61 ; 
Letter from Horace Greeley, 62 ; Row over the Omnibus, 62 ; Danger of 
rending the Whig party, 63 ; Comments by the Tribune, 64, 65 ; Mr. Clay 
and General Taylor, their antagonistic plans, 66 ; California and New 
Mexico, 67; Buying off Texas, 68 ; Omnibus can't pass, 68; Advice to the 
politicians, 69 ; Letters from editor Boston Atlas on Tribune letters and 
General Taylor, 70 ; Insists upon correspondence, 70 ; Mr. Clay's great 
speech, 71 ; Its characteristics, 71 ; His impetuosity and fervor, 72 ; De- 
nounces the President's plan, 72 ; Mr. Clay's bleeding wounds, 73 ; Screed 
from Albany Register, 73, 74 ; Comments on Mr. Clay, 75 ; Action of the 
President and Mr. Clay's criticisms, 75, 76 ; Arraigns the President, 
Taylor, 77 ; Character of the charges, 78 ; The bill of particulars, 78, 79 ; 
Exposure of Mr. Clay's attitude, 80. 

FROM MAY, 1850, TO JANUARY, 1852.— PAGES 80 TO 100. 

Mr. Clay's great effort, 81 ; Whigs of Pennsylvania and Massachusetts ma- 
nipulated by him, 82 ; Letter from Charles A. Dana, 83 ; His comments 
and propositions, 83 ; Letter from Mrs. Governor Davis, 84 ; Senator 
Dayton and Governor Davis, 84 ; Letters from I. Washburn, Jr., V 
and H. Greeley, 85 ; Froni Truman Smith, 86 ; Letter from Charles 
A. Dana, 87 ; Greeley going to Europe, 87 ; Profits of the Tribune 
and names of stockholders, 87, 88 ; Bayard Taylor going to Africa, 88 ; 
Salaries of editors, 89 ; Invitation to the fraternity, 90 ; Who are our 
" national statesmen ?" 91 ; Mr. Webster's course, 92 ; The men who made 
sacrifices, 93; A Golgotha party, 94 ; Caleb Cushing's enterprise, 94 ; One- 
idea men, 95 ; Repeal the Fugitive Slave Law, 96; Letter from C. A. Dana, 
96 ; Prospects of Presidential candidates, 96 ; Letter from " Uncle" Truman, 
97 ; Letter from Dana, 98 ; Tribune stock, 98 ; Great dinner to Kossuth in 
Washington, 99 ; His speech, 100. 



JANUARY TO MARCH, 1852.— PAGES 100 TO 120. 
Speeches at the Kossuth dinner, 101 ; Seward, Douglas, Cass, Cartter, 101 ; 
Webster against Fillmore, 102 ; The Fugitive Slave Law and Mr. Clay, 103 ; 
President refuses to withdraw as a candidate, 104 ; Mr. Webster and his 
friends concerned, 104, 105 ; John Davis's speech, 105, 106 ; Letter from Col- 
lector Groely, Boston, 107; The Fugitive Slave Law a great offence, 108 ; 
Northern Whigs hostile, 109 ; General Scott and the Presidency, 109 ; 
Pascal on Cleopatra's nose, 110 ; Letter from editor Kennebec Journal, 111 J 



CONTENTS. V 

Letters from P. Greely, Jr., and Charles A. Dana, 112 ; Don't wish to lose 
contributions, 112 ; A correspondent wanted, 113 ; The compromise meas- 
ures, 113 ; Senator Foote's impending dangers, 114 ; Buchanan and Douglas, 
115 ; Mr. Seward makes a great speech, 116 ; Compared with Clay and 
Webster, 116 ; Letter from P. Greely, Jr., on Webster men, 117 ; Cass and 
Douglas, Congressional grist, 118 ; From P. Greely, Jr., 119 ; Agitation on 
the Presidency, 120. 

MARCH TO JUNE, 1852.— PAGES 120 TO 140. 

Mr. Clay out for Fillmore, 121 ; Mr. Webster and General Scott not "tried" 
men, 122 ; Letter from Thomas Corwin, 122 ; His opinion on newspapers, 
122 ; Complaints of Boston Courier, 122 ; Mr. Webster and Mr. Fillmore 
lack intrepidity, 123 ; Mr. Corwin's high character, 124 ; Letter from P. 
Greely, collector, 124 ; Whig party has two wings, 124 ; General Taylor's 
policy, 125 ; President Fillmore's policy, 125 ; Northern and Southern 
Whigs, 126 ; Cannot compromise the question of human freedom, 127 ; 
Congress cannot control public opinion, 127 ; Resolutions and declarations 
powerless, 128 ; Northern Whigs will not support slavery, 129 ; Edward 
Stanly, 130 ; Letters from P. Greely, 131, 132 ; Charles Hudson, 132 ; Re- 
marks on great men, 133 ; Source of the prosperity of Massachusetts, 134 ; 
Orators poor legislators, 134 ; Political apostates, 136 ; Letter from Horace 
Greeley, 136 ; Presidential convention, 137 ; Speech of Cartter, of Ohio, 
138 ; Irritated condition of parties, 138 ; Letters from H. Greeley and P. 
Greely, 139 ; Horace Greeley's Scott letter, 140 ; General Scott upsets letter 
arrangement, 140. 

JUNE TO DECEMBER, 1852.— PAGES 140 TO 160. 

The Scott letter, 141, 142; President Fillmore's efforts to obtain nomination, 
143 ; General Scott's prospects, 144 ; Letter from P. Greely, Jr., 145 ; Letter 
from John Otis, 146 ; Letter from Horace Greeley on platform, 146 ; 
Letter from Charles A. Dana on Life of Scott, 147 ; Commodore Perry and 
Bayard Taylor, 147 ; Letter from C. A. Dana on Scott's prospects, 148 ; 
On Life, 149 ; In German, 150 ; Baltimore Whig convention, 151 ; Unfair 
proceedings, 151 ; Vote of Maine, 153 ; Letter from Samuel Haight on 
Pittsburg Gazette, 153 ; Letter from W. H. Seward, 154 ; Cuba annexation, 
154 ; A bubble, 155 ; Wages of diplomacy, 156 ; Reports from our ministers 
abroad, 156 ; Abbott Lawrence, William C. Rives, Neil S. Brown, 156 ; Mr. 
Folsom, Mr. Barringer, 157 ; Annexation of Cuba, 158 ; Senator Allen's 
novel argument, 158 ; Putnam's Magazine, 159 ; Spain opposed, 160. 



JANUARY TO MAY, 1853.— PAGES 160 TO 180. 

Cuba, 161 ; Edward Everett's able despatch, 162 ; Objections to his conclusions, 
163 ; The argument, 163 ; Senator Badger, his character and talents, 164, 
165 ; Champions of manifest destiny, 166 ; General Cass one of them, 166 ; 
His speech, 167 ; Letters from Mr. Corwin 168 ; A collapsed balloon, 169 ; 
Young America's wind-bags, 169; Pierre Soule's futility, 170; Filibusterism 
on the ebb, 170 ; Douglas's speech, 170 ; Senator Westcott on turtles, 171 ; 
Gets them protected, 172 ; Sabine and Andrews. 172 ; People of the Bahamas 



CONTENTS. 

intrude, 173 ; Westcott's versatility, 173, 174 ; Letter from Truman Smith on 
a new party, 175 ; Pierre Soule appointed minister to Spain, 176 ; Santa 
Anna as Dictator, 177 ; His overtures to Spain, 178 ; Mexico in a state of 
decay, 178, 179 ; Lieutenant Maury in a state of enthusiasm on Amazonia, 
180. 



MAY, 1853, TO JANUARY, 1854.— PAGES 180 TO 200. 

Lieutenant Maury's rivers that run up stream, 181; Offers Nashville convention 
the Tabatinga trade, 182 ; Humorous letter from George Ripley, 183 ; Senator 
Atchison on Nebraska bill, 184; Double bondage, 185; William Walker 
founds a new State, 186 ; Lower California and the Code Napoleon, 187 ; 
Walker's finances, 188 ; Douglas assails the Missouri Compromise, 188, 189 ; 
The repeal denounced, 190 ; Character of slavery, 190 ; Ex-Senator Foote 
down in the boots, 190 ; His funeral oration, 191 ; More news from the 
Amazon, 192 ; Coal and hams on the equator, 192 ; Character of the 
country, 193 ; Dress of leading citizens, 193 ; Lieutenant Herndon on their 
domestic luxuries, 194, 195; Tigers, anacondas, etc. ,195, 196 ; England's 
trading policy, 197 ; Slavery an Ishmael, 198 ; Foote's resurrection, 199 ; 
Walker's designs in California, 200 ; Supported by the administration, 200. 



JANUARY TO MARCH, 1854.— PAGES 200 TO 220. 

Attempts to make Lower California a Slave State, 201 ; Whig and Freesoil 
parties a majority, 202 ; Can they be united? 202; Influence of Nebraska 
bill, 203 ; Southern men, 204 ; Letter from George F. Talbot, 205 ; Missouri 
Compromise, 206 ; Badger and Stephens, 206 ; Fallacies exposed, 207, 208 ; 
Excuses considered, 209 ; Violation of compact, 210 ; Sophistries, 211 ; North- 
ern doughfaces, 212 ; Douglas led by Toombs and Stephens, 213 ; Their 
memorable interview with President Taylor, 214 ; Their character, 215 ; 
Troy Whig, 215, 216 ; Night scenes on passage of Nebraska bill, 216-18 Mr. 
Fessenden's maiden speech a great success, 219, 220 ; Thomas H. Benton's 
characterization of the Senate, 220. 



MARCH TO JUNE, 1854.— PAGES 220 TO 240. 

Benton and Douglas, 221 ; John Bell, 221 ; Missouri Compromise, 222 ; Coming 
storm, 223 ; Letter from E. B. Washburne, 224 ; Thirty-six hours' session, V 
224 ; Defeat of the conspirator?, 224 ; Appeal to the people, 225 ; Letter from J 
I. Washburn, Jr., 226 ; Upham's speech, 226 ; Southern policy denned, 
227 ; Slaveholder's scheme, 228 , What they propose, 228 ; Letter from Lewis 

D. Campbell, 229 ; Gerrit Smith hangs fire, 229 ; Revolution in progress, 
230 ; Ominous murmurs, 231 ; Public sentiment invoked, 232 ; Letter from ~J 

E. B. Washburne, 233 ; Letter from Dr. Bailey, 233 ; An address needed, 
234 ; Letter from L. D. Campbell, 234 ; Revolution accomplished, 235 ; North- 
ern democracy under Whig leaders, 235 ; Liberty the great interest of the 
state, 236 ; Letter from Dr. Bailey, 237 ; Truman Smith and B. F. Wade for v' 
a new party, 237 ; Albany Journal against it, 238; Death of Governor 
Davis of Massachusetts, 238 ; His character and qualities, 239, 240. 



CONTENTS. vii 

JUNE TO SEPTEMBER, 1854.— PAGES 240 TO 260. 

Fugitive slave Anthony Burns, 241 ; No more surrenders, 242 ; Taunts of the 
South, 243 ; Doughfaces, 244 ; Coming doom of the traitors, 244 ; Great 
excitement in Massachusetts, 245 ; Trial by jury demanded, 246 ; Letter 
from Senator Wade, 246 ; Letter from Dr. Bailey, 247 ; Straub, 248 > 
Extracts from his speech, 249, 250 ; Extraordinary rhetoric and commenda- 
tion, 251, 252 ; Count Gurowski, his character, 252 ; Letters from, 253-5 ; 
Letter from I. Washburn, Jr., 254 ; England fails at Cronstadt, 256; Ces- ■/ 
sion of Russian America, 256 ; Letter from Gurowski, 257 ; Kossuth, Hun- 
gary, and Poland, 257 ; Greytown, 258 ; Letter from Mr. Fessenden, 258, 259 ; 
Letter from Governor Grimes, 259 ; His successful campaign, 259 ; Letter 
from Charles A. Dana, 260 ; Tribune affairs, Greeley for Governor, 260. 



SEPTEMBER, 1854, TO MARCH, 1855.— PAGES 260 TO 280. 

Letters from Charles A. Dana, 261, 262 ; Letter from I. Washburn, Jr., 263 ; 
Pierre Soule's diplomatic fiasco, 264 ; His capers in Europe, 265 ; South try- 
ing to capture Nebraska, 266 ; Bowie-knife tactics, 267 ; Kansas our Crimea, 
268 ; Polygamy in Utah, 269 ; Mormon priesthood, 269 ; Letter from a 
lady, 270 ; Domestic tragedies, 271 ; U. S. Treasury besieged, 272 ; The 
mystic Sam, a new pope, 273 ; Old-line Democrats lugubrious, 273 ; Inop- 
portune issues, 274 ; Belittling questions, 275 ; Know-Nothing politics, 
276 ; Fugitive Slave Law made more obnoxious, 277 ; Northern State courts 
growing independent, 278 ; Toucey, Douglas & Co., 279 ; One good action 
of President Pierce, 280. 

MARCH, 1855, TO JANUARY, 1856.— PAGES 280 TO 300. 

Collins steamship line, bribery denounced, 281 ; New party of the North, 282 
Democratic party destroyed, 283 ; Requirements of anti-slavery party, 283 
Country can be carried, 28i ; Designs of diplomatic brigands on Cuba, 285 
Soule's programme, 286 ; Famous Ostend manifesto, 287 ; Buchanan, Soule 
and Mason, 287 ; One hundred and twenty millions offered, 288 ; A peni 
tentiary crowd, 289 ; Objects of the oligarchy, 290 ; Soule's woes, 291 
Shipwreck in New Hampshire, 292, 293 ; Letter from Mr. Chase, 294 
Letter from Count Gurowski, 294 ; Letter from Mrs. Governor Davis, 295 
Theodore Parker, 295 ; Letter from Mr. Chase, 295 ; As candidate for 
President, 296 ; Letter from C. A. Dana on domestic felicities, 296, 297 ; 
Fry, Bayard Taylor etc., 297; Israel Washburn for speaker, 298; The 
West Indies, 298 ; Letter from Governor Chase on his successful canvass 
in Ohio, 299 ; Letter from Charles Sumner, 300. 



v 



J 



JANUARY TO APRIL, 1856.— PAGES 300 TO 320. 
President Pierce shirking his duty, 301 ; Special message of Governor Chase, 
302 ; Speaks for freedom, 303 ; Lordly strain of Richmond Enquirer, 304 ; 
Doughface does not fight, 305 ; Letter from Horace Greeley, 305 ; Needs 
money, 306 ; What the Know-Nothings are driving at, 306 ; Nominate Fill- 
more, 307 ; Aim to defeat the Republicans, 308 ; Row with English au- 
thorities over enlistments, 309 ; Diplomatic action and correspondence, 310, 



vni CONTENTS. 

311 ; Lord Clarendon and Mr. Marcy, 311 ; the law and the practice, 313 ; 
London Times takes a hand, 312 ; Kansas, 313 ; Governor Reeder, String- 
fellow, Atchison & Co., 313-15 ; Woes of British Consul Barclay, 316 ; 
Tries to bully, 317 ; Marcy's statement, 318 ; Joseph Howe, of Nova Scotia, 
319 ; His talents and good nature, 319 ; Douglas's voluminous report, 320. 



APRIL TO MAY, 1856.— PAGES 320 TO 340. 

Demagogism of Douglas, 321 ; Sharp's rifles wanted, 321 ; Candidates for the 
Presidency, 322 ; Fremont doubtful, 322 ; Condition of Kansas, 323 ; W. 
L. Marcy, 324; Idealess administration, 324 ; Jeff. Davis, 325; Slavery the 
test of party orthodoxy, 326 ; The filibuster Walker, 327 ; Grotesque pre- 
tensions, 328 ; Senatorial discussions, 329 ; Mr. Cass, 329 ; Divisions of the 
Democracy, 330 ; Critical state. 331 ; Cass's post-mortem examination, 332 ; 
Tergiversation and apostasy of Northern men, 333-334 ; Mr. Sumner's ora- 
tion, 335 ; He is menaced, 336 ; Letter from Horace Greeley, 337 ; Letter 
from Charles A. Dana, 338 ; Attack on Sumner, 338 ; Great excitement in 
Washington — Members go armed, 339 ; Seward offers resolution, 340. 



MAY, 1856, TO FEBRUARY, 1857.— PAGES 340 TO 360. 

Campbell's resolution on the Sumner case, 341 ; Benton's criticism on the as- 
sault, 342 ; Senators Wade and Wilson denounce it, 343 ; Letter from 
Horace Greeley, 344 ; Republican convention, 344 ; Fremont, 345 ; Letters 
from Charles A. Dana, 345, 346 ; Letters from Horace Greeley, 346, 347 ; 
Letter from Dana, 347 ; H. Greeley on results of Maine election. 348 ; Wants 
one every week, 348 ; Letter from Charles A. Dana on election canvass, 
Fry, etc., 349 ; Greeley on St. Paul and Governor Banks, 350 ; Congres. 
sional discussions moderated, 351 ; Cass and long speeches, 352 ; Letter 
from C. A. Dana, 352 ; Important decision expected from Supreme Court, 
352 ; Reverdy Johnson — argument before the Supreme Court in the Dred 
Scott case, 353 ; Defends slavery, 353 ; Supreme Court a political body, 354; 
The coming decision will have no moral weight, 355 ; Washington Union, 
new turn to its arguments, 356 ; Letter from George F. Talbot on a dissolu- 
tion of the Union, 358; Criticises the Tribune, 359; Letter from T. W. 
Higginson on Massachusetts disunion movement, 360 ; The Dallas Treaty, 
360. 



FEBRUARY, 1857, TO FEBRUARY, 1858.— PAGES 360 TO 380. 

Dallas Treaty, 361 ; Lord Palmerston in a conceding mood, 361 ; Bay Islands, 
362 ; No war, 362 ; President Buchanan's policy, 363 ; In the hands of the 
oligarchs. 364 ; Doctrines of his inaugural address, 365 ; No freedom out- 
side the Free States, 366 ; Slavery is King, 366 ; Supreme Court the citadel 
of slavery, 368 ; Judge Curtis'a great argument, 369 ; Judge McLean's 
opinion, 369 ; action of court provokes civil conflict, 370 ; What are you 
going to do about it ? 371 ; Answer to the question, 372 ; North must act, \r 
373 ; State-rights doctrines good for the emergency, 374 ; Letter from Joshua 
R. Giddings, 374 ; Letter from Horace Greeley, 375 ; Letter from Count 
Gurowtki, 375 ; Letter from Donn Piatt, 376 ; An non est man, 376 ; Letter • \ 



CONTENTS. ix 

from Charles A. Dana, 377 ; Letter from Dr. Bailey, 377 ; Letter from Sena- 
tor Wade, 378 ; Hopes to preach funeral sermon of the Democratic party, 
378 ; Fessenden on Seward, 379 ; Grow knocks Keitt down, 379 ; Increase 
of the army, 380. 



FEBRUARY TO MARCH, 1858.— PAGES 380 TO 400. 

Army hill debate, 381 ; Senators Hale and Fessendeu oppose increase, 381 ; 
Wanted for crushing out purposes, 382 ; New York City rotten, 383 ; Le 
compton meeting called by respectables, 384 ; Gentlemen called by name, 
384 ; Some questions asked, 385 ; Slave trade reopened, 386 ; Richmond 
Whig favors it, 387 ; Some striking statistics, 387 ; The army for rebels, 388 ; 
Two sides to that proposition, 389 ; Slave trade in Virginia, 390 ; Some im- 
portant facts, 391 ; Virginia pauperized, 393 ; Letters from Fitz Henry War- 
ren, 393 ; Senator Seward's generalizations, 394 ; Senator Collamer's phi- 
losophy, 395 ; His errors, 396 ; Mr. Seward on annexing new territory for 
Slave States, 397 ; His proposition and objections to it, 398 ; Governor 
Hammond of South Carolina, 399 ; His theories, 400. 



MARCH TO MAY, 1858.— PAGES 400 TO 420. 

Massachusetts and Virginia, 401 ; Slavery profitless, 402 ; British West Indies 
illustrates it, 402; Letter from Hon. I. Washburn, Jr., 403 ; Judah Benjamin, 
404 ; His argument for slavery, 405 ; Attacks Lord Mansfield's decision, 
406 ; A feature of the reaction, 407 ; Mr. Benjamin's talk will perish, 408 ; 
Letter from I. Washburn, Jr., 409 ; Letters from Fitz Henry Warren and 
Senator Wade, 410 ; From Count Gurowski, 411 ; From W. Pitt Fesseuden, 
412 ; Death of Thomas H. Benton, 412 ; His peculiar characteristics, 413 ; 
His intense personality, 414 ; A man of measures, 415 ; His private life and 
character, 416 ; Letters from W. H. Seward and Dr. Bailey, 417 ; From 
Gurowski and Mr. Chase, 418 ; Mr. Chase explains his position, 419, 420 ; 
Letter from Dr. Bailey, 420. 



MAY, 1858, TO JUNE, 1859.— PAGES 420 TO 440. 

Letter from Nicholas P. Trist on his Protectorate scheme, 421 ; Letter from 
Horace Greeley — thinks the Tribune old " Hunker," 422 ; Letter from Count 
Gurowski on the Atlantic telegraph, 423 ; Letters from I. Washburn, Jr. , 
and William P. Fessendeu, 424 ; From Mr. Fessenden and Mr. Dana, 425 ; 
From Henry Wilson — his congratulations, 426 ; Same from Mr. Fesseuden, 
426 ; Letter from Hon. Thomas Corwin, 426 ; Speaking thirty-six hours in 
every twenty-four, 427 ; Letters from Mr. Fessenden and Governor Morrill, 
428 ; From Hon. E. L. Hamlin, 429 ; From Hon. Amos Nourse, 430 ; From 
Charles A. Dana, 431 ; Judah Benjamin on Cuba, 432 ; Advocates slavery 
everywhere, 433 ; A remarkable speech from Senator Thompson, of Ken- 
tucky, 434, 435 ; Senate convulsed, 436 ; Senator Collamer on Cuba, 437 ; 
Buchanan Cuba-crazy, 438; Incompetence of Democratic leaders, 438; Let- 
ters from J. E. Harvey, William P. Fessenden, and Governor Morrill, 
439, 440. 



CONTENTS. 



JUNE TO DECEMBER, 1859.— PAGES 440 TO 460. 

Letter from Charles A. Dana, 441 ; Tbe Count promises good fashions, 441 ; 
Letter from Mr. Fessenden, 441, 442; Best way to avoid danger, 442 ; Too 
busy to travel, 442 ; Letters irom Charles A. Dana, 443, 444 ; Anxious 
about Hildreth, 443 ; His incomparable professional utility, 443 ; Weed < 
and Morgan, 444 ; Letters from Mr. Fessenden on Presidential candidates, * 
Great Eastern, etc., 445 ; Murder of Senator Broderick, 446 ; Slavery begets 
the duel, 447 ; Confederate assassins, 448 ; Old John Brown, 449 ; Child 
and champion of Kansas, 450 ; Letter from Charles Sumner, 451 ; Governor 
Wise on John Brown, 452 ; Post-office incendiaries, 452, 453 ; The Herald 
incendiary, 453 ; Appeal to Postmaster-General Holt, 454 ; Letter from 
Charles Sumner, 454 ; Letter from Truman Smith, 455 ; Postmaster- 
General Holt and the Herald, 455 ; A second Mrs. Partington wanted, 456 ; 
Resisting civilization, 456 ; South wants to be let alone, 457 ; So does the 
burglar, 457 ; Irrepressible conflict, 458 ; South lets nobody alone, 458 ; 
Rights of the North, 459 ; Branch challenges Grow, 460 ; Death on a 
punctilio, 460. 



JANUARY, I860.— PAGES 460-480. 

Burlingame's peril on account of a duel, 461 ; Difference between North and 
South on duelling, 461 ; Grow's lack of knowledge on the Code of Honor, 
462 ; Professed duellist ridiculous and detestable, 462 ; A gang of assas- 
sins, 462 ; North don't send their fighting men to Congress, 463 ; Plenty of 
bruisers, but they stay at home, 463 ; N. Y. Herald an inflammatory sheet, 
464; Promotes slave insurrections, 465; Mr. Raymond's soothing speech, 465; 
His prescription, 466 ; Duty of South and North, 467, 468 ; Mr. Cushing 
and Mr. O'Conor, 468 ; The Helper book, 469 ; Its clandestine circulation, 
469 ; Mr. O'Conor in a muddle, 470 ; Neither rational nor logical, 471 ; Mr. 
Raymond's fresh screed, 472 ; His remarkable diagnosis, 473 ; Lack of pre- 
cision, 474 ; His treatment and final specific, 475 ; Mr. George Wood pro- 
trudes, 476 ; On Cuffee and Sambo, 476 ; Mr. Amy ou John Brown, 477 ; 
A crowd of border ruffians, 478 ; Letter from I. Washburn, Jr., 479 ; Lon- 
don Times on the situation, 479, 480. 



JANUARY 31 TO MARCH 4, I860.— PAGES 480-500. 

Jefferson Davis on disunion, 481, 482 ; Letter from I. Washburn, Jr., 482, 483 ; 
Letters from Fitz Henry Warren, 483-5 ; Letter from Benjamin Stanton, 485; 
Representative Hickman assaulted, 486; Slavehunters quelled in Kansas, 
487; Lessons taught thereby, 487; Washington may follow suit, 488; Senator 
Broderick's obsequies, 489 ; Toombs officious, 489, 490 ; Senators Brown and 
Mason, 490 ; Activity of the slave trade in the United States, 491 ; Causes 
of it, 492, 493; The only cure, 493 ; A sudden demand for scamps, 494, 
495 ; Letter from Fitz Henry Warren, 495 ; Wit of Fitz Henry, 496 ; The 
Vice-President's apology, 497; Where is Keitt? 498; Diabolical attack, 
498; Letter from Horace Greeley, 499; Letters from Greeley and Dana, 500, 



CONTENTS. xi 

MARCH TO DECEMBER, I860.— PAGES 500-526. 

Letters from Horace Greeley and Charles A. Dana, 501, 502 ; Letter from Sal- 
mon P. Chase, " the Era's" affairs, 502, 503 ; His position on the Presidency, 
503 ; Horace Greeley on being a bore, and the use of a devil, 504 ; Letter 
from Mr. Chase on Dr. Bailey's affairs, and neglect of Republicans, 504, 
505 ; Owen Lovejoy's fiery speech, 506 ; Two million copies should be circu- 
lated, 507 ; Perversions of the New York Herald, 508 ; New divisions of 
parties, 509 ; Combination of Southern and Northern aristocracies, 510 ; It 
must fail, 511 ; A great political tempest portends, 511 ; Reply of the Herald, 
512 ; Letters from Mr. Corwin and Gurowski, 513, 514 ; Count exhibits 
great rage, 514 ; Mr. Seward's defeat in National Convention, 515, 516 ; The 
reasons stated, 517, 518 ; Thurlow Weed on Mr. Greeley, 519 ; Letter from 
H. Greeley, 520; His experiences at the Convention, 520 ; Last night of the 
Democratic party, 520, 521 ; The funeral orations in detail, 521, 522 ; A 
rampant slave trader, 523 ; Letters from Gurowski and Greeley, 524 ; Let- 
ters from Mr. Fessenden in high spirits, 525, 526 ; Letter from Fitz Henry 
Warren, 526. 



The following alphabetical table refers to the private letters 
printed in this volume : 

Bailey, Dr. G., editor of the National Era. . . .233, 234, 237, 238, 247, 377, 417, 

418, 420, 421 

Carter, Henry, editor of the Portland Advertiser 27 

Campbell, Hon. Lewis D 229, 234 

Chase, Salmon P. . . .294, 295, 296, 298, 299, 300, 418, 419, 420, 502, 503, 504, 

505, 506 
Corwin, Thomas 122, 168, 426,427,513 

Dana, Charles A. . . .83, 87, 88,89,90, 96, 97, 98, 112, 113,147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 
153, 260, 261, 262, 296, 297, 298, 338, 345, 346, 347, 349, 352, 377, 425, 431, 

432, 441, 443, 444, 500, 501 

Davis, Mrs. Governor 84, 295 

Fessenden, Hon. William Pitt. . . .259, 260, 379, 412, 424, 425, 426, 427, 428, 439, 

440, 441, 442, 444, 445, 525, 526 

Giddings, Hon. Joshua R 374 

Greely, Philip, Jr., Esq., Collector of Boston. .. .107, 112, 117, 119, 124, 131, 

132, 133, 138, 139, 145, 146 

Grimes, Governor 259, 260 

Gurowski, Count . . .253, 254, 255, 256, 257, 258, 294, 375, 376, 411, 418, 423, 

424, 513, 514, 515, 524 

Greeley, Horace. . . .41, 48, 49, 50, 62, 85, 136, 137, 139, (Scott letter) 140, 141, 142, 

146, 147, 305, 306, 337, 338, 344, 346, 347, 348, 349, 350, 375, 422, 499, 500, 

501, 502, 503, 504, 519, 520, 524 



Ml CONTENTS 

Haight, Samuel 153 

Harvey, James E 439 

Hamlin, Hon. Elijah L 429 

Higginson, T. W 360 

Kettell, S., editor of the Boston Courier 26, 32, 40, 41 

Lady, A 269, 270, 271 

Lovejoy, Owen , 417 

Morrill, Governor Lot M 428, 429, 430, 440, 441 

Nourse, Amos 430, 431 

Otis, John 146 

Piatt, Donu 376, 377 

Ripley, George 183 

Seward, William H 154, 342, 417 

Smith, Hon. Truman 86, 97, 174, 175, 176, 454, 455 

Schouler, William, editor of the Boston Atlas 9, 42, 43, 70 

Sumner, Charles 300, 451, 454 

Stanton, Hon. B 485, 486 

Talbot, George F 205, 358, 359 

Trist, N. P 421, 422 

Wheeler, William H., editor of the Kennebec Journal Ill 

Washburn, Jr., Hon. I 85, 226, 259, 260, 263, 403, 404, 409, 424, 479, 482, 

483 

Wilson, Hon. Henry 425, 426 

Washburne, Hon. E. B , 224, 233 

Wade, Hon. Benjamin F 246, 247, 378, 410 

Warren, Gen. Fitz Henry. .. .393, 394, 409, 410, 483, 484, 485, 495, 496, 497,526 



PREFACE. 



While the following contemporaneous exposition does not 
undertake to give an exhaustive history of the subjects with 
which it deals, but presents rather, a compilation of historic 
materials, it is thought it may possess an interest and an atmos- 
phere of its own that may commend it to public notice. It 
especially treats of the course of public events in this country, 
bearing on the questions of disunion and slavery, during the ten 
or eleven years immediately preceding the civil war. It offers 
a picture of the strenuous exertions of the slaveholders to annex 
Cuba and to plant slavery in the Territories, or, failing in that, 
to accomplish secession ; and of the equally determined efforts of 
the people of the Free States to prevent the execution of those 
purposes. 

The leading men of the country, with their vivid hopes, fears, 
and designs, all pass in rapid review before the reader. The par- 
ties engaged in that great struggle are here brought face to face, 
and their statements, arguments, objects, and methods are, it is 
believed, delineated with sufficient distinctness to show the pro- 
gress of the great question involved, through the several years 
during which the controversy was carried on. 

"We must observe that this record is drawn from a great mass 
of material, which < it has been necessary to sift and greatly 
abridge, in order to bring the work within reasonable compass. 
The reader will require this explanation in order to understand 
some of the private correspondence, which refers to events and 
discussions then taking place, but not herein recorded. Many of 
the topics thus referred to, not being germane to our present 
purpose, have been set aside, and nowhere appear in the text. 



xiv PREFACE. 

The period covered by the following pages being one of deep 
historical interest and importance, must always attract a large 
share of public attention. It will always be memorable as the 
era of the last argumentative and legislative struggle on the part 
of the slave-holding statesmen, and that in which the advocates 
of African slavery received their death-blow after a contest in 
the national councils of near half a century. 

It will be evident to the reader that much of the following 
matter, with the exception of the private letters, which now first 
see the light, has already been laid before a wide circle of read- 
ers in the New York Tribune during the period of its largest 
circulation. That paper, under Mr. Greeley, was the great anti- 
slavery journal of the period, and at that time the spokesman 
of the most numerous and determined body of men ever associ- 
ated for public purposes in the United States. 

Of the private correspondence, we wish to remark that it is 
presented as it was written. A more rigid rule would have 
excluded some of its personal features ; but it was thought best 
to preserve the individuality and local coloring by allowing the 
letters to stand as originally composed. 

The sentiments expressed in the following extract from a 
cotemporary journal, the New York Times, we trust may find 
an echo in the public mind : 

" And now that all of the great anti-slavery leaders in Con- 
gress have gone ; their services, their sacrifices, and their heroism 
may be recalled, to the exceeding profit of their survivors and 
successors. They perfected a great work for humanity — a work 
which the world may long regard with admiration. They 
stemmed the rising tide of human slavery in the republic. They 
resisted the encroachments of an odious barbarism. They de- 
served well of their country, and they have left a valuable legacy 
to the human race." 



FIRST BLOWS OF THE CIVIL WAR. 



A CONTEMPORANEOUS EXPOSITION. 



1850. 

WILL THE PLAN OF DISUNION WORK ? 

[From the Boston Courier^ 

"Washington, January 15, 1850. 
Will the plan of disunion work ? "What will it accomplish ? 
It can neither prevent slavery in the Territories, nor pre- 
vent emancipation in the District of Columbia. Yet these 
two objects are what the South is driving at, and is in arms 
to accomplish. If disunion takes place, it will be because the 
South secedes. But she will leave the District of Colum- 
bia behind her, and the Territories behind her. They belong 
to the existing States and government. The new Southern 
nation must be limited to the points of secession. The pres- 
ent designs of the North, then, namely, to maintain freedom 
in the Territories, and to abolish slavery in the District, will not 
be frustrated by disunion. The secession of the slave States will 
only the more quickly precipitate both events. "What, then, 
will the South gain by a rupture of existing relations ? Certainly 
neither of the objects for which she professes to be now striving. 
One other result she longs for, namely, freedom from agitation. 
But will disunion secure her this ? Agitation is electric, atmos- 
pheric, imponderable. It is incapable of suppression, incapable 
of restraint. It will go where the winds go. If every inch of 
the line which shall surround and mark the borders of the new 
confederacy, shall have a glistening bayonet planted upon it, 
pointing defiantly outward against all the world, and resting 
upon a living wall of defence, they will not keep out agitation. 
It will still enter, penetrate, and permeate all within. The 



2 DISUNION NO REMEDY. [Jan. 

spirit of freedom, that universal perturbator, seeks forbidden 
ground, and there forever continues its restless wanderings and 
agitations, impalpable and invisible. The South will not gain 
tranquillity, then, on the subject of slavery, by disunion. Her 
legislators might, however, escape to some extent the irritation 
to which they say they are constantly subjected in consequence 
of sitting together in council with men in whom belligerent 
propagandism is an active principle, and who consider it their 
especial mission and foreordained destiny to announce freedom 
and denounce slavery. But this trivial matter of personal com- 
fort is really a very small affair to be thrown into the scale 
against the wholesome influences which bless not only us, but 
the world, through our national unity, and the substantial advan- 
tages which attach to every man of the country while he remains 
a citizen of the great, united American republic. To dissolve 
the Union for such a cause would be as great a folly as to ampu- 
tate a leg to get rid of a corn. 

But if it be alleged by the South that it is future aggressions 
to which they are looking, and that if the Union continues the 
North will not stop with her Wilmot provisoism, or the abolition 
of slavery in the District of Columbia, but will proceed to strike 
at slavery in the States, it is answer enough to say that for slavery 
in the States the North has no responsibility and no remedy, and 
that if it were ever so much disposed, it could no more practically 
interfere with slavery there than it can now prevent its colored 
citizens from being whipped into jail on their arrival in Southern 
ports ; and who, failing to foot the bills of their own unlawful 
incarceration, are themselves sold into slavery to the highest 
bidder. No ; the South can, and does, and will continue to guard 
her peculiar institution most effectually while in the Union. She 
has no need to go out to do it. And, in our view, it is a most ex- 
traordinary spectacle, for which no unprejudiced mind can divine 
any good reason, to find her legislators indulging in such parox- 
ysms of wrath, and wielding the terrors of disunion, because the 
North insists upon freedom in the Territories and freedom in the 
District. They might well be excused for resistance by their 
speeches and their votes, but the constitutional authority to do 
both being clear to every man of common understanding, it seems 
preposterous to threaten to tear down the pillars of the govern- 



1850] PRACTICAL DIFFICULTIES. 3 

ment in case it is exercised. There is really nothing but what is 
perfectly natural and perfectly proper on the part of the North 
in what it claims of its representatives on these two points. 

For the plain reasons, therefore, that the North does not pro- 
pose or desire to interfere with slavery in the States, and that in the 
-eye of God and man, in view of the intelligent opinions of a past 
age, and the advancing civilization of the present generation, it de- 
mands nothing unreasonable in desiring the continuance of free- 
dom in Territories (which, if it be not continued, would have 
been a thousand times better off under the stolid barbarism of 
Mexico), we say, that in demanding freedom for them, and free- 
dom in the capital of the republic, there being nothing unreason- 
able, and that dissolution will not prevent freedom in either, we 
come to the conclusion that the plan of disunion will not work ; 
and this conclusion, it will be seen, rests upon considerations 
which appeal with as much force to Southern as to Northern 
men, and is entirely aside from any considerations connected 
with the inherent and insurmountable difficulties of carrying out 
a plan of secession, even if there were good reasons for its being 
attempted. We have a right, then, to conclude that the judg- 
ment of the South will, in the last resort, pronounce against the 
plan of disunion as a remedy for the grievances of which they 
complain. 

But if these considerations, placing the matter, as we think 
they do, upon a perfectly just and stable foundation, taken with 
the fact that the North is not amenable to the charge of any 
desire to vex or exasperate the South, or to do her any injustice, 
and that, to no undistorted vision does the South appear wounded, 
either in dignity or honor, in submitting to the operation of 
clearly constitutional laws ; if these considerations are not suffi- 
cient to restrain the fiery impetuosity of her people from plung- 
ing into the fatal gulf of disunion — there still remain those of a 
more stringent character to deter them from such a step. 

Among the numerous practical difficulties which beset the 
whole plan of separation, we shall only allude to one, which, in 
any supposable division between the free and slave States, presents 
an obstacle which seems to defy removal. This is the fact that the 
Mississippi River, the great highway and outlet of the "West and 
North-west, is bordered by numerous slave States, and finally 



4 NO PEACEABLE DISSOLUTION POSSIBLE. [Jan. 

disembogues its waters in a Southern slave State. The question 
arises at once, Shall Louisiana secede, and hold the mouth of this 
river ? What would Ohio, and Indiana, and Illinois, and the 
great States springing up in the vast and fruitful Valley of the 
Upper Mississippi and its tributaries, say to this ? They can 
give but one answer. They will say, The Mississippi is ours, 
and its mouth is the outer door of the passage-way which leads 
from our granaries, and that outlet we intend to hold against the 
world, and shall guard it and control it against the world. 
Louisiana and the South might surrender its free navigation. 
They must do more. They would be compelled to yield juris- 
diction below to the dwellers above. The people of the North- 
west would submit to no restricted occupation of this great inland 
channel of commerce, which Nature has provided for their use. 
The Lower Mississippi would thence become the point of contact 
and conflict between the South and the North. The most perfect 
agreement in regard to dissolution, in all other respects, would 
here be torn to atoms. Here would arise an invincible element 
of discord, which would confound and render vain and ineffectual 
all efforts to establish harmony and pacific intercourse between 
two great rival powers. No ; the Mississippi River cannot belong 
to any two nations. It can be made no Siamese band ; on the 
contrary, it is the spine of this confederacy, and it cannot be 
dislocated by having the boundary of rival states cross its waters, 
without a palsying quiver being sent through every part, termi- 
nating: in the destruction of the vitalitv of both extremities. 

There are other reasons why there can be no peaceable dissolu- 
tion of this Union. The Government of the United States, 
headed by a President who has sworn to support the Constitution 
and is determined to uphold the Union, will lay its heavy hand 
upon whomsoever attempts to disorganize and break it up. The 
Union is not looked upon by the Government of the United 
States or the people of the United States as a loose aggregation 
of States — a confederacy from which any member may withdraw 
at will, but as the result of a contract which binds every mem- 
ber, and which must be enforced, if necessary, against which- 
ever of its members may turn recusant and desire to escape from 
its obligations, or reclaim the concessions it has voluntarily made 
to the government of the whole. No attempt at secession, there- 



1850] POWER OF THE UNION. 5 

fore, can for a moment be countenanced by the national govern- 
ment. The first step to sever that comprehending bond which 
encircles these States will call down its whole power to crush the 
effort. That power is great and terrible, for it rests upon the 
Constitution and the laws, and is sustained by the affections and 
upheld by the mighty will of millions of free people. 

But will the crisis come to test the determination of the 
South ? We believe it will not. At least, we see no probability 
that it will. As we have said, there are but two points of col- 
lision in the present position of the slavery question. One is the 
question, now imminent and pressing, of slavery in the Territories 
— the other, of its abolition in the District. As regards Cali- 
fornia, we may regard the question as settled. The idea of set- 
ting aside her recent action in establishing a State government 
and throwing her backward into a state of territorial tutelage 
and apprenticeship is entirely out of the question. And it is 
not to be presumed that the sensible men of the South can ex- 
pect to be successful in any such effort. If they attempt any 
such scheme, they will only excite the hostility and prejudices of 
the people of California, which they must know they had far 
better not arouse. She will be a border State, and as such it is 
wiser for the South to conciliate her good-will, than to inflame 
her resentment by a childish and passionate opposition to her ad- 
mission into the Union. We do not believe, therefore, that any 
thing serious is intended in the threatened opposition to the ad- 
mission of California under her present constitution. 

In the remaining Territories, the question of the Wilmot 
Proviso will be evaded, by allowing them to follow the example 
of California, and go ungoverned, or govern themselves in the 
best way they can, until they are ready to come into the Union 
as States. There is no probability that any bill establishing a 
territorial government in New Mexico, Deseret, or Jacinto, 
either with or without the Wilmot Proviso, can be carried 
through Congress. We believe there will be a concurrence be- 
tween WTiigs and Democrats to this end. The question of 
slavery in the Territories will thus be left to settle itself, or, more 
properly speaking, to be settled by the people of the several Ter- 
ritories. 

Touching the subject of abolition in the District, it is well 



6 ORATORY OF HENRY CLAY. [Jan. 

known that Congress is not yet ripe for any such act. That the 
pressure of public opinion will continue to augment until such a 
measure is forced through the national legislature, can, however, 
hardly admit of a doubt. But it is not likely to be accomplished 
by this Congress or the next. A few more seasons of agitation 
and discussion will, however, bring it about, and, meantime,, its 
limits will be reduced till nothing remains but the city of Wash- 
ington, and by this time the South will gradually come round 
to acquiescence in the opinion that, as a measure of practical 
emancipation, it is really a small affair and the least of all possi- 
ble reasons that can be given for a threat to dissolve the Union. 

I have thus briefly presented what appears to me to be the 
true view of the great question now agitating Congress and the 
country, and which will continue to be the theme and staple of 
public discussion during the entire session. We shall undoubt- 
edly have the Union dissolved forty times before its close, if 
political storm and tempest, the thunder and lightning of the 
Senate, the volcanic eruptions of the House, the flashing clouds 
of the State legislatures, and the artificial earthquakes and phos- 
phorescent fire of letter- writers, can accomplish it. But it is to 
be hoped and presumed that all the roar and fury of the political 
elements will not frighten the sober citizens of the country from 
their propriety, and that they will not go into a frenzy of alarm 
at every explosion which may come of the constantly generating 
gases at Washington. J. S. P. 



MR. CLAY'S ORATORY. 

[From the Portland Advertiser.] 

Washington, January 30, 1850. 
There was an unusual amount of collision and striking fire 
in the Senate yesterday. Mr. Clay introduced his resolutions to 
compose the existing public disorders. The Southern ultra- 
slavery men received it most ungraciously. Mr. Clay's efforts 
seemed a little like undertaking to " shingle a whirlwind." He 
introduced his resolutions with a bland and conciliatory speech, 
such as he alone of all our public men has the faculty of making. 



1850] JEFFERSON DAVIS. 7 

Nobody can look like Mr. Clay when he wishes to be persua- 
sive ; nobody has that sort of eyelid lift of his countenance that 
he has ; no man can talk through and with his hands like Mr. 
Clay ; nobody else has that speaking toss of the head from side 
to side, that brailing up and letting run of the mouth, that 
familiar jocularity of expression in looks as in language ; no one 
can command that sudden shift from ease to severity of feature, 
that quick transition from familiar tone to lordly manner ; in a 
word, no other man possesses that tout ensemble of the agreeable 
and commanding phases of oratory in his own personal presence. 
Mr. Jefferson Davis chafed Mr. Clay by reading a resolution 
of his (Mr. Clay's) introduced into the Senate some twelve 
years ago, and by his comments thereon. This brought Mr. 
Clay up a second time, and he exhibited much fire and animation 
in his reply. In allusion to the declaration of Mr. Davis that he 
would never consent to any compromise that did not establish 
slavery below 36° 30', Mr. Clay became excited and declared that 
for himself he would never do any thing to introduce slavery 
anywhere, neither North nor South of the line of 36° 30'. This 
declaration brought down the applause of the galleries, which was 
however quickly checked by the Vice-President's hammer. Mr. 
Clay declared his readiness to debate the whole question at a 
proper time — any time, indeed, when it would suit the senator 
from Mississippi — whereat Mr. Davis exclaimed, "Now, now." 
Mr. Clay replied, " Not so fast ; you must wait till I ain 
done." He closed by pouring a little oil upon the waves, and 
proposing to make his resolutions the order of the day for Tues- 
day next, when it is to be presumed he will make his grand effort 
in their support, with what success remains to be seen. The 
public mind, in this quarter at least, does not seem to be in a 
condition to be swayed to or fro on the great question at issue by 
any speech, however brilliant or persuasive, or by any man, how- 
ever distinguished. The currents set so strong that they will be 
controlled only by time and the inevitable course of events. I 
hazard little in saying that no other plan of disposing of the ter- 
ritorial question will be found effectual save that recommended 
by the President. If the South are really bent upon dissolution, 
and are only using the present condition of things as a pretext 
for secession, then it is in vain to attempt small expedients for 



8 PREDICTIONS OF DISSOL UTION. [Jan. 

the purpose of stopping them. If they are not determined upon 
it, but are only adopting measures which they think most likely 
to insure their success in their great object of getting more area 
for slavery, then it is wholly unnecessary to do any thing more 
than to wait, and let the question of slavery settle itself in New 
Mexico and Deseret. It has grown to be plain enough that, if 
left to themselves, these Territories will come into the Union as 
Free States. 

Amid all the projects and all the debates on this most fruitful 
theme of Free Soil, there is much serious apprehension and many 
quakings of fear. There are acute and extensive manifestations 
of alarm at the dangers which menace the Union of the States. 
Already has the value of stocks and property been drawn into the 
account, and calculations of profit and loss are thrown into the 
scale against the Wilmot Proviso and free territory. The South- 
erners profess to have great faith in these pocket- touching con- 
siderations in influencing the course of the money-loving Yankees. 

It is confidently stated, with what truth I know not, that 
two of our most eminent statesmen have recently declared that 
the Union cannot exist for two years longer. But old age be- 
comes timid and easily alarmed. We all remember that we 
were told during the Oregon controversy that war with England 
was " inevitable." And the apprehensive character of the gen- 
tleman's mind who used so often to say so, made him to believe 
his own declaration ; so, also, before the last presidential canvass, 
we know who declared that the nomination of the Baltimore 
Convention was equivalent to an election ; and on the other side, 
who among our most distinguished "Whigs had no faith what- 
ever in the success of Zachary Taylor. These things lead us to 
hesitate about pinning our faith and our judgment upon the 
opinions of any gentleman, however exalted in talents or repu- 
tation. For our own part, we do not partake of these fears. 
There are disunionists at the South. There are men in Congress 
who would bring about a separation if they could. But we con- 
fide in the sober sense and patriotism of the country, North and 
South. We do not believe the people of the South can be 
brought up to the sticking-point of attempting to dissolve the 
Union because the North steadily refuses to vote for the estab- 
lishment of slavery in our new Territories. And we do not mean 



1850] LETTER FROM EDITOR BOSTON ATLAS. 9 

to believe it till the thing is done. And if Northern people at 
Washington would plant themselves firmly on this ground, and 
think less and talk less about compromises and backing out, they 
would soon reduce the dimensions of this bubble of disunion. It 
is a fortunate circumstance that we have a man of pluck at the 
head of affairs in the present juncture. Whoever else may be- 
come alarmed, General Taylor will not. The country may re- 
pose in this conviction. P. 



[From General Schouler.] 

Boston Atlas Office, Saturday. 
My Dear Pike : It is now eight o'clock a.m. I am vexed to death 
ever since I arose (two hours ago) at the stupidity of our foreman in 
leaving out your letters, and especially your letter upon Clay's speech. 
If you see the Atlas, you will find a paragraph calling attention to the 
letter, but no letter. I agree with my namesake, William, that — 

" When sorrows come, they come not single spies, 
But in battalions." 

I think you have showed up Clay just about right. By the way, have 
you counted noses on the Omnibus bill ? Do you think it will pass the 
Senate ? I know this, that Uncle Dan has written a letter to a friend 
in Boston — it was received yesterday — in which he says he shall go for 
the " Compromise" right through and no mistake ; so you put him 
down as a passenger there. 

We are all agog about the election in the Fourth District, which comes 
off on Monday. I have good reports from the district, and I am san- 
guine that Thompson will be elected. The Freesoilers are pretty active, 
but they find their work uphill business. Old Zach is popular among 
the u yeomanary," as Shep. Cary used to say in Congress, and I think we 
shall carry Thompson through on the strength of it. The Locofoco 
leaders in the district are working in favor of Palfrey, as there is an 
understanding among them and the Freesoilers that if Palfrey is elected 
to Congress now he will not be a candidate again, and they will unite 
with the Looofocos to elect their man. 

When you come along, stay awhile in Boston, and we will arrange to 
have a social sit down with Greely and a select few at the Tremont. I 
wish you would bring Ed. Stanley. 

I subscribe myself your ever thankful and faithful 

Wm. Schouler. 



10 RIGHTS OF THE TERRITORIES. [Feb. 

THE NATIONAL QUAKREL. 

[From the Bofton Courier.] 

Washington, February 6, 1850. 

We are in the midst of a great national quarrel. It has been 
brewing these sixty years. The seeds of it existed when our pres- 
ent government was framed. It threatened to burst out into an 
open rupture thirty years ago. Now it threatens again, more 
alarmingly than ever. 

We are thirty States ; half of them hold slaves, and half do 
not. By our joint efforts we have taken a large additional Terri- 
tory from Mexico. It is to be cut up into States — and by whom 
peopled ? By men whose rights are the same as ours. Those 
men may establish independent sovereignties — ay, as independent 
as South Carolina herself ever was. What then ? They may 
seek admission and be received as coequal members of our Fed- 
eral Union. They will then be as independent of every other 
State, as each State of the existing confederacy is now indepen- 
dent of every other. But is this power and this equality, thus 
obtained, a granted right, a gift, a bestowment by us, the owners 
of the land, where these States are established ? Not at all. It 
is a natural right, which inheres in the people of the Territories 
themselves. Such is the theory of our political institutions. 

But the South, intently bent on the one purpose of spreading 
her antiquated and offensive practice of slavery, seems to forget 
these plain truths. She appears to be watching her own motions 
only, and to forget great principles and the great movements of 
the times. She planned the annexation of Texas, to enlarge her 
field for slavery. It was carried on — consummated ; but it 
brought the Mexican war. This has passed away and left be- 
hind it another large addition to our territorial area. The South 
looks upon this — as she looked upon the acquisition of Texas — 
as a new domain for slavery. But it so happens that the " pe- 
culiar institution " has no foothold there. The outer limits of 
Texas are the extreme boundaries of slavery. And now, what 
do we hear ? A fierce clamor set up that slavery shall be ex- 
tended into these Territories. And on what ground ? Why, 
that they are the fruits of a conquest — the spoils of a war with 
our weaker neighbor ; that this joint republic is the owner of 



1850] THREATS OF THE SOUTH 11 

them and their people, and may do what she will with her own ; 
or, rather, that each member of the Union has a separate partner- 
ship right of jurisdiction. It is conquered territory, and we are 
the conquerors, to dispose of these rich trophies of our prowess 
in arms as we think best. The South looks upon them as ours, 
in the same manner that Great Britain looked upon the thirteen 
colonies as hers — as Russia looks upon Poland — as Austria now 
looks upon Hungary — yea, as the butcher looks upon the bul- 
lock — a something to be cut up, divided, and apportioned out to 
hungry consumers ; and she demands her share. The claim is 
wholly anti-republican ; it is as repugnant to those ideas of civil 
liberty upon which our government rests, and which are every- 
where agitating the old world with convulsive throes and vol- 
canic fires, as the object of it is offensive to the moral sense of 
the civilized world. 

What further ? Why, we are told that unless this claim is 
yielded to, unless the ground is abandoned, that the people 
of the Territories shall be allowed to form such governments as 
they like, and forever exclude slavery, if they like ; and unless 
a division is made by which the South shall get her share of 
the plunder (for such she views it) then this Union shall be 
broken, this government dissolved, and force of arms shall 
secure what is denied by legislation. The threatened alter- 
native is the old alternative of tyranny — gunpowder and the 
bayonet. 

We state the case none too strongly. The President pro- 
poses that California shall come in as a State under her existing 
constitution, and that New Mexico shall be allowed to follow her 
example. Southern men say, " No ! this shall not be. We 
are determined to have a national recognition of the right to 
carry slaves into any part of the country south of 36° 30', or we 
will dissolve the Union, and take our part (and perhaps the 
whole) of the Territories along with us." They declare they will 
not consent to the policy of the North, which is to exclude 
slavery from the whole of these Territories, either by especial pro- 
hibition or by giving the reins to the inhabitants thereof, who 
are known to be opposed to the institution. To do this, they 
say, will be to be guilty of abject submission to the North — to 
relinquish their rights in the Territories — to acknowledge vas- 



12 BLINDNESS OF THE SLA VEHOLDERS. [Feb. 

salage, and succumb to the Free States. They violently assert 
that they will not submit to the degradation. 

This is the actual state of the issue as it now stands, divested 
■of all ambiguities. The North may here see, whosoever will 
may here see, the naked facts of the case. 

We submit that in taking this ground the South is mole-eyed 
and mad. She is blind to the existing state of human opinion. 
She sees that her own immediate interests would be furthered by 
taking slavery into California and New Mexico, and she thence 
insists that whatever obstacles intervene shall be removed. 
This she does in defiance of all other considerations. She is will- 
ing to exert arbitrary power to effect her object. She is willing 
to deny the rights of the people of the Territories. The rights of 
the inhabitants are nothing in her eyes. She has not awakened 
to the fact that at this day the common-sense of the world re- 
volts at such pretensions. She is blind to the fact that the womb 
•of time is quick with the coming birth of universal freedom. 
She believes in physical force — in arbitrary, despotic power. 
She thinks the bursting energies of mankind, although so strik- 
ingly displayed within a short period in the old world, can be 
hooped like a barrel. She sees not the explosive forces in hu- 
manity which will ultimately break every band of tyranny 
asunder, and scatter in ten thousand fragments the power which 
seeks to bind and enslave. She believes in the whip and the 
chain, the forge and the fetter. She recognizes not the univer- 
sal law of compensations. She thinks not that "God is just." 
Even at this fructifying period, this marked epoch in the world's 
history, the whole earth so lately alive and vocal with the song 
of freedom — here, in republican, democratic America, she asserts 
the right of conquest over a distant people, and believes she can 
carry by force, and establish over them, where it is not wanted, 
the institution of human slavery. 

The admission of California is opposed on the ground that 
slavery is not to be permitted there ; and the scheme of the 
South goes the length of forcing it into that new State. So, 
too, with New Mexico, which cannot be left to decide for 
herself in regard to the character of her domestic institutions, 
but must receive such as the South chooses to send and impose 
upon her. 



1850] WAR THE DOOM OF SLAVERY. 13 

It is not assuming too much to say that the North cannot go, 
in the way of settling this quarrel, an inch beyond what is pro- 
posed by the President of the United States in his late message 
on California affairs. California must be admitted as a State — 
New Mexico must be admitted when she presents her constitu- 
tion. But if this is to be so, then, say the South, " We part 
company. ' ' Let us cast one glance for a moment into the fu- 
ture, in view of this " parting company." 

We have on a previous occasion spoken of one great practical 
difficulty in the way of separation, arising from the fact that the 
Mississippi River finds its way to the sea through Slave States. 
The very circumstances under which a rupture of the existing 
Union is now threatened point to even a greater obstacle than 
this. Taking the most favorable view of the subject, supposing 
that the South will propose to depart in peace, to make a treaty 
defining limits and boundaries, establishing commercial relations, 
adjusting old scores of debt, naval and military possessions, etc. , 
etc., what is to become of the territorial question ? We cannot 
agree in regard to it while existing as an undivided people, hav- 
ing every conceivable national motive under heaven to settle it 
peaceably. What shadow of hope is there, then, that when the 
inability to dispose of this subject satisfactorily is to be made the 
very cause of disunion, when that event shall be consummated, 
and the motives that now urge its pacific settlement shall be in 
consequence withdrawn, that we can then make it a matter of 
simple treaty arrangement ? None whatever. It is but too evi- 
dent that if the South goes on to disunion on the alleged ground 
of disaffection, she goes on to civil war. 

Who doubts the result of such a contest ? The contempla- 
tion of it is fearful, terrible in the extreme. The doom of sla- 
very is sealed the day that contest commences. 

Mr. Clay has finished his two days' speech. In the course of 
it he gave his views very fully on the whole subject of slavery, 
and on various collateral topics. But he was neither profound, 
brilliant, nor impressive. He was on the wrong side. Talking 
two days on slavery, and never once alluding to the " rights of 
man," or giving one flap to the wings of the spirit of liberty, is 
not the thing. He did not in a single instance make the dust fly 
from the back of the old black leviathan known as the ' ' peculiar 



14 FOOTE AND DISUNION. [Feb. 

institution." A much, very much smaller man than Mr. Clay 
could have produced a far deeper impression than he has, by 
speaking on the abolition side of the question. J. S. P. 



FOOTE S FOLLY. 
[From the Boston Courier.] 

Washington, February 27, 1850. 

Mr. Foote made a great parade of saying, on Monday, that 
unless the Senate took measures to stop the progress of events 
within five days, that it would be ' ' too late ' ' to do any thing to 
save the nation ; that if matters were allowed to go on as they 
had been and were going, dissolution would become inevitable 
within that period. And he assured senators in the most solemn 
manner, upon his conscience and his honor, that he knew of what 
he spoke, and that they must disregard this announcement at 
their peril. The wags say, therefore, that disunion will positive- 
ly take place on Saturday next at one o'clock, p.m., and that 
there will be no postponement on account of the weather. Mr. 
Corwin is reported as saying that the " crisis" has already arrived 
at Hampton Roads. 

The Free States hold the peaceable settlement of the whole 
territorial question in the hollow of their hands. They have 
only to act steadily and moderately about the admission of Cali- 
fornia, and let alone every other feature of it, to accomplish all 
that they want to accomplish. The Southern agitators and dis- 
unionists are in a bad way. Unless the North can be coaxed, or 
wheedled, or flattered, or cajoled, or driven into doing something 
for their relief, they must soon be checkmated. They have but 
a move or two more. In this strait the most beseeching faces 
have of late been turned towards Mr. Webster. Leading senators 
and leading newspapers, the very antipodes of the distinguished 
senator in all things, have suddenly begun to coo round him 
like doves, begging him to produce some plan or bring forth 
some compromise which shall avert the threatened doom. We 
shall see what Mr. Webster will do in this emergency. 

The appearance of things in New York is that Mr. Clay's 
friends will try hard to make his plan of establishing territorial 



1850] WEBSTER'S FATAL SPEECH. 15 

governments, without the Proviso, go down with the New Yorkers. 
We have reason to believe that so far as the New York members 
of Congress are concerned, they will not succeed. With very 
few, and perhaps no exceptions, the New York members will be 
found sustaining the President's policy. And notwithstanding 
the powerful personal and political motives brought to bear in 
the most influential quarters to secure a different result, we have 
faith to believe that the whole Whig force from the Free States 
will stand firm against Mr. Clay's plan, which, if any thing can, 
will give New Mexico to slavery. J. S. P. 



MR. WEBSTER S SPEECH. 
[From the Boston Courier.'] 

Washington, March 8, 1850. 
Mr. Webster made his great speech yesterday to a crowded 
and delighted audience. The Senate was much more densely 
packed than when Mr. City spoke. The mass was wedged close 
on every inch of ground, the ladies even filling senators' chairs 
and all the space between them. The orator spoke about three 
hours. His speech speaks for itself. To say that it comes fully 
up to the tone of Northern members of Congress, or that it meets 
their expectations, would be to state that which is not fact. In- 
deed, we are unable to find that any Northern Whig member of 
Congress concurs with Mr. Webster in the propriety of establish- 
ing territorial governments for New Mexico, etc., without the 
"Wilmot." And it is freely said that his argument, that it is 
not worth while to "re-enact what God has ordained," would 
have been as good an argument against the original passage of 
the ordinance of 1787, as it is against the application of the 
" Wilmot" to a territorial government for New Mexico. 

J. S. P. 



SPEECHES OF WEBSTER AND CALHOUN. 
[From the Portland Advertiser.'] 

Washington, March 9, 1850. 
We have had the past week the two great speeches of the 
session on the slavery question. Mr. Calhoun tottered to the 
Senate on Monday, carrying his manuscript with him. Too fee- 



16 CALHOUN'S FINAL EFFORT. [March 

ble to read it himself, Mr. Mason, of Virginia, performed the 
office for him. The speech was listened to with profound at- 
tention. It bears the peculiar characteristics of its distinguished 
author ; displaying great force, great earnestness, great direct- 
ness, and being marked throughout with the analytic power, 
unity of idea, and simplicity and clearness of expression which 
stamps all his productions. 

Mr. Calhoun is imbued with the notion that slavery ought to 
be, and must be perpetual. He believes it to be the only con- 
servative element in this government, and as such the only pre- 
servative ingredient of our free institutions. "When slavery falls 
we are to tumble into anarchy and chaos as a people. No won- 
der he sets such store by so glorious an institution, and that he 
seeks so earnestly and solicitously for the means to render it en- 
during. His present scheme is to give it new guards and pro- 
tection by an amendment of the Constitution which shall confer 
a qualified veto upon the Slave States. If we read his speech 
aright the South cannot, in his opinion, remain in the Union 
with safety and honor without the insertion of such a provision 
in the Constitution, sooner or later. As the Slave States decline 
relatively in power, their ability to protect themselves will be 
4 entirely lost without this new means of defence and preservation. 
Hence its necessity. 

Precedent, however, to this is another essential condition of 
the South remaining in the Union. She must be permitted to 
carry her slaves to our newly acquired Territories without let or 
hindrance. She must have access to California and to New 
Mexico. If she cannot have this privilege, but is to be excluded 
therefrom, then does she reckon herself to be reduced to the ne- 
cessity of secession, or of submitting to deep humiliation and 
degradation. 

Though Mr. Calhoun pressed these points with great 
strength, we yet believe from his own course of remarks that 
the South is not ready for a forcible attempt to dissolve the 
Union. Whatever the inclinations of her people, and especially 
of some of her ambitious sons, we believe she will be deterred 
from any such step, notwithstanding the policy of the adminis- 
tration may be pursued to its full fruition in the admission of 
both California and New Mexico as Free States. 



1850] WEBSTER 8 mCOiySISTEWJY. 17 

Mr. Webster's speech, delivered on Thursday, made a wide 
and deep sensation. It was listened to by the most densely 
packed audiense ever assembled within the walls of the Senate 
chamber. It was a very able speech of course. Mr. Webster 
cannot speak without making an able speech. But in its main 
point, that of the application of the Wilmot Proviso to a terri- 
torial government for New Mexico, Mr. Webster disappointed 
the North by his declaration that he should vote against it. The 
sentiment is uniform among Northern members, New England 
members especially, that on this question he must stand alone. 
Not a Whig from New England will go with him. We have no 
disposition to animadvert upon the speech, though we consider 
it open to censure, both for what it says and for what it does not 
say. It is as remarkable for its omissions and deficiencies as it 
is for its declarations. We shall say no more of it than that we 
consider it unsound, impolitic, and mat a apropos. Yet we can- 
not forbear to allude to the striking contrast exhibited by Mr. 
Webster's vote and action in August, 1848, in favor of apply- 
ing the Wilmot Proviso to the Oregon territorial bill, and his 
present declaration that he will not vote for the Proviso in a ter- 
ritorial bill for New Mexico, because it would be to " re-enact 
the will of God." Pray tell us, was it the will of God that 
slavery should exist in Oregon, and did Mr. Webster make his 
great efforts on that memorable occasion to thwart that will ? If 
not, what did he do then but " re-enact the will of God ?" And 
we should be pleased further to be informed whether there was 
more danger of slavery going into Oregon, all of which is north 
of the celebrated line of 36° 30', than there is of its going into New 
Mexico, all of which is south of that line ? Alas ! alas ! Mr. 
Webster. J. S. P. 



GOVERNOR SEWARD S SPEECH. 
[From the Boston Courier."] 

"Washington, March 12, 1850. 
The North had another spokesman yesterday. Governor Sew- 
ard, of New York, made along, able, comprehensive, and well-rea- 
soned speech on the whole subject of slavery, California, territorial 



18 ME. SEWAED'S SPEECH. [March 

governments, Proviso, Texas, etc. , etc. He made a deep dive into 
the dark ages and brought up a treaty for the surrender of fugi- 
tive slaves made in the tenth century. He declared that he 
could find nothing else like it in all history, excepting in our 
Constitution. But besides this specimen of ancient lore, he 
brought before us numerous quotations from Machiavelli, Mon- 
tesquieu, Lord Mansfield, and we do not remember how many 
others. I liked his speech yesterday much. If it had come at 
any other time it might have been reckoned to have had too 
strong an infusion of abolition sentiment ; but following Mr. 
Webster's, which had such a plentiful lack of that ingredient, it 
seemed to restore the " equilibrium" in Northern circles that 
was so sadly disturbed by Mr. Webster's effort. When one has 
been compelled to take a bad dose, something pungent is neces- 
sary to take the taste out of the mouth. Hence it is we have 
rolled Mr. Seward's rankest sentiments as a sweet morsel under 
our tongue. We certainly ' ' breathe freer and deeper' ' than we 
have before since Thursday. Yet our apprehensions are great 
that Mr. Webster's speech may operate so that the game of the 
Missouri compromise, in a modified form, is to be played over 
again. Should this prove to be so it needs no prophet to fore- 
tell that a storm will sweep over the North that will destroy 
every political man, great and small, who contributes by his acts 
in Congress to that result. But unfortunately it cannot come 
till freedom may have received a deadly wound. 

As the present seems to be a time when a little consolation 
will not come amiss to those Northern men, those Massachusetts 
men, we may say, in whom the love of freedom is ingrained, we 
beg to call attention to the late speech of Horace Mann, issued 
a few days since. Here is a speech worthy of the successor of 
the venerable John Quincy Adams. For truth of doctrine and 
genuine independence and manliness of tone it is not surpassed ; 
while for copiousness of language, splendor of diction, and afflu- 
ence of thought, it is unmatched by any that it has been our for- 
tune to hear or read during the present session. J. S. P. 



1850] MR. DAYTON'S SPEECH. 19 

MR. DAYTON'S SPEECH. 

[From the Boston Courier.] 

Washington, March 23, 1850. 

The great comet of dissolution tliat has been blazing upon us 
so long, coming nearer and nearer, until alarm and consternation 
began to spread through all ranks and circles at its fiery and 
threatening appearance, has passed its perihelion, and is already 
going rapidly out of sight in its retreat towards the infinite realms 
of space. The storms which blew so furiously, and the waves 
that dashed so frightfully upon our ship of state have become 
gentle gales and harmless billows, over which we are now riding 
without hearing scarcely the creak of a spar or witnessing the 
strain of a rope. In truth, we are listlessly rolling upon the still 
heaving but yet placid bosom of affairs. We have passed the 
Cape, and the broad Pacific stretches away before us. 

A great scene of excitement having thus been undergone, re- 
action comes, lassitude ensues, and the public yawns. The de- 
bates drag. The war of words has ceased to seem big with de- 
struction. The terrific explosions of nouns and pronouns, of ad- 
jectives and adverbs, seem far off in the sky, where they can 
harm nobody. We dawdle and loiter and wait for a fresh breeze 
to spring up in some new quarter of the heavens. It would 
even be a relief to hear a dying roar of the old storm. Above, 
around, in doors and out, all is as 

"Dull as the fat weed that rots on Lethe's wharf." 

Yesterday a very excellent speech was made in the Senate by 
Judge Dayton, of New Jersey. Mr. Dayton is well known as 
one of the ablest and most accomplished debaters of the body to 
which he belongs, and of which he is indeed every way a shining 
ornament. J. S. P. 



DEATH OF CALHOUN. 

[From the Boston Courier.'] 

"Washington, April 1, 1850. 
John C. Calhoun is dead. His colleague, Judge Butler, read 
this morning a fitting notice of his life and death, which occupied 
some twenty or thirty minutes in the delivery. 



20 DEATH OF CALHOUN. [April 

Mr. Clay followed, and j:>ronounced a feeling eulogium. It 
was a just tribute of an aged and honorable public man, himself 
among the highest in distinction, to a contemporary of forty years' 
standing, of equal fame, and doing equal credit to the author and 
the illustrious dead. 

Mr. "Webster followed Mr. Clay, and drew a graphic picture 
of Mr. Calhoun's mental and moral character, and accorded to 
him the highest and noblest qualities of head and heart. His. 
remarks were calm, measured, and eulogistic. lie chronicled in 
a brief manner the distinguished characteristics of his great an- 
tagonist, and fully indorsed him as a man every way worthy of 
honor and admiration. 

The Senate was full, and the whole scene was profoundly in- 
teresting for upward of an hour. 

After Mr. "Webster had spoken, Mr. Rusk, of Texas, made a 
few observations. Mr. Clemens, of Alabama, followed by a 
sophomorical display that was enough to set one's teeth on edge. 
After bedaubing Mr. Calhoun, Mr. "Webster and Mr. Clay, in a 
way to shock the living and agitate the dead, he sat down. Mr. 
Clay called Mr. Clemens " eloquent " a few weeks ago. It is to- 
be hoped the compliment has not spoiled him. J . S. P. 



WAR IN THE WHIG PARTY. 
[From the Boston Courier.] 

Washington, April 7, 1850. 

Two years ago the Whig party undertook the bold experi- 
ment of throwing off its old leaders. After a furious struggle 
they succeeded in doing it by the nomination of General Taylor 
at the Philadelphia Convention. The defeated portion of the 
party were excessively chagrined and very considerably enraged. 
Mr. Clay wrote a sneering letter upon the proceedings of that 
convention, and his friend and champion of the JVew York Tri- 
bune called it the " slaughter-house" of "Whig principles. Mr. 
"Webster was not less severe, and pronounced the nomination 
' ' not fit to be made. ' ' 

After the election of General Taylor, the members of the 
political circles, of which these distinguished gentlemen were the 



1850] WAR IN THE WHIG PARTY. 21 

several centres, crowded around General Taylor and his friends 
to see what was to be done. Of course they would like to make 
up the administration and give it its tone. To this end promi- 
nent friends were pressed for the Cabinet. But General Taylor's 
advisers were selected through other influences, and mainly on 
the ground that an exfoliating process had been commenced on 
the party at General Taylor's nomination, and that the idea which 
lay at the bottom of the Philadelphia movement could only be 
carried out by an independent selection of the members of the 
new administration. 

It was predicted at the start, in leading "Whig circles, that the 
administration was so ill-assorted and weak that it would inevita- 
bly break down. The friends of the two great Whig champions 
washed their hands of the whole concern, and with folded arms 
took the position of outsiders, to see how the new men would 
work. 

When it came to the distribution of offices, the administration 
were pressed hard to avow their policy on this subject. The out- 
siders and the party generally were clamorous for a general 
sweep. After some backing and filling, the President and Cab- 
inet, seeing the strong set of the current, fell in with the general 
desire, and the duties of their place in this particular branch 
were discharged with commendable alacrity, and to very general 
satisfaction. An equable disposition of the offices allayed to a 
great extent the irritation, and removed the coldness of that por- 
tion of the party which thought they were to be ostracized in con- 
sequence of General Taylor's election, and the independent con- 
struction of the Cabinet. Mr. Clay's friends and Mr. Webster's 
friends were well served, and so far as the gift of office went, no 
personal distinctions were recognized, but the whole Whig party 
was regarded as a unit, and the distribution of place was made 
accordingly. 

Thus, on the meeting of Congress, the Whig party was reck- 
oned to be as compact as it well could be under the circum- 
stances — that is to say, in its personnel. There was nothing 
wanting, therefore, but an understanding and an agreement upon 
its general policy, and an active concurrence among the members 
of the party in Congress, in order to have the administration go 
along smoothly. On the tariff question, which is the only 



22 GENERAL TAYLORS PRUDENCE. [April 

domestic question strictly dividing the Whig and Democratic 
parties proper, that rests on any well-delined principle, Mr. Mer- 
edith's exposition was able and satisfactory. lie made a distinct 
issue with the opposition on this subject, upon which the Whigs 
could everywhere stand. 

The territorial question, involving the great and difficult sub- 
ject of slavery generally, forcing itself upon Congress and the 
administration, had to be met. It was taken up by General 
Taylor in a just spirit, considered in a conciliatory temper, and 
treated with consummate prudence. The administration pro- 
posed an easy settlement of this vexed question — a settlement 
satisfactory to the North, and coming from a Southern Presi- 
dent and a Southern Cabinet, inevitably satisfactory to the 
South. The policy was, as it need not be said, to admit the 
several Territories as States as fast as they presented themselves 
for admission, and propriety would warrant ; and in the mean- 
time to allow them to go on as they have long gone on, under 
their existing civil and military regulations. Nothing could be 
simpler than this, nothing easier and more natural, nothing 
less irritating. It is a policy absolutely avoiding all the diffi- 
culties of the slavery question, fair and just to all sections, and 
to which no man, North or South, can fairly take exception. 

Now, notwithstanding the considerate and unexceptional 
course of the administration here briefly delineated, yet taking 
into consideration some of the facts we have recounted, it can- 
not be considered altogether surprising to see the ancient Whig 
leaders declining to concur in its policy on the great and absorb- 
ing question of the day, and bringing forward new plans and 
new schemes to supplant that policy. 

The legitimacy of the existing dynasty has never been ac- 
knowledged, and no heartiness of support has ever been ac- 
corded to it by certain leading and powerful interests in the 
Whig party. From the time of the nomination of General Tay- 
lor down to the filling of the Cabinet, and from that time to 
this, it is no secret that there has been coldness, a want of sym- 
pathy, and a suppressed hostility to the powers that be, in influ- 
ential quarters. 

And thus it is we have at this moment individual Whig 
schemes for settling the great question of the day, supported by 



1850] MR. CLAY'S COMPROMISE. 23 

one and another from all parties, instead of an administration 
policy universally sustained by the Whig press, the Whig mem- 
bers of Congress, and the Whig party. We see a house divided 
against itself. Instead of the administration of its policy being 
warmly and heartily sustained by the leading members of the 
party in Congress ; instead of witnessing an unbroken esprit de 
co7'j?s throughout the ranks, which regards its first duty to be to 
preserve the morale, the integrity, the reputation and standing 
of the whole corps, we see an inglorious rivalry among subordi- 
nates in station, to usurp the prerogatives of its chief. There is 
rebellion in the camp. The standard of revolt is reared, and 
rival leaders unfurl their banners for followers. Mr. Clay, in- 
stead of quietly working in harness, and coming in to the aid 
and support of the administration, avows his contempt for its 
policy and announces a grand " compromise," with a flourish of 
trumpets, which is to supersede all other plans for the settlement 
of the territorial and slavery questions. Mr. Webster fails to 
recognize any virtue in the administration plan of settlement, 
and likewise marks out a course for himself. 

Thus we go. What can come of it all but weakness, disper- 
sion, and dissolution, so far as the Whig party is concerned ? 
Can a party stand with its leading men pulling openly in differ- 
ent directions on a great question of public and party policy ? 
It will not take a thimbleful of brains to answer the question. 
The Northern Wing party, we fear, is already temporarily ship- 
wrecked, so far as success in the election goes, in consequence 
of these divisions. And unless there shall be a speedy change in 
the tactics of some of the leading men of the party, we foresee 
nothing but disaster upon disaster to the Whigs throughout the 
North. Can anybody fail to see (and seeing it, shall we not ac- 
knowledge it) that Mr. Webster's speech is a bomb fired into 
the ranks of the Whigs of the Free States that threatens a most 
disastrous explosion ? 

We consider it to be highly fit and proper for us to allude to 
this subject, and to state the conviction which we know to be 
widespread, that Mr. Webster owed, and still owes it to the Whig 
party to avoid making distracting issues for them, whether he 
is or is not to be rewarded by them with the highest honors in 
their gift. But we fear (and some will very likely set it down 



2-i DANGERS OF PARTY DIVISIONS. [April 

to his credit) that Mr. "Webster has chosen to disregard all ties 
of obligation to party and to the administration (we will not add, 
to the greater cause of freedom) in the course he has chosen. 
And thus, too, with Mr. Clay, whose nature, and we might almost 
say, whose prerogative it is, by virtue of his transcendent powers, 
not to see any great virtue or merit in any policy or any admin- 
istration of which he is not the head and leader. 

But from whatever causes or motives they may have acted, 
we think it is but too plain that from the failure of these two 
distinguished "Whig leaders to second and support the policy of 
the administration on the territorial and slavery questions, is to 
be apprehended great peril to the ascendency of the Whigs. 
The Whig party is not large enough yet to be cut up into a Clay 
party, a Webster party, and an administration party. In any 
political contest marked by such divisions, a certain other party, 
called the Democratic party, would be very sure, in almost any 
State, and almost any locality in any State, to bear away the 
standard of victory. And it is the prospect of such a division 
that we deplore, and which leads to the conviction we have ex- 
pressed, of coming disaster to the Whigs, unless something is 
done to avert it. We do not believe that Massachusetts herself 
is safe with the prospect of divisions already shaping themselves 
in the distance. In that State, however, it may be that the party 
to whom success is to enure is not yet born or christened, but is 
to be compounded of existing materials, and increased by aggre- 
gations of pure Whig blood, and whose name and title shall be, 
when it shall spring, at a single bound, into eager and glowing 
existence — the Coalition! 

If it be supposed that any strength can be brought to the sup- 
port of either of the great names we have mentioned, in any 
coming canvass, outside of the Whig party, the history of the 
Democracy, par excellence, has been read to little purpose. We 
may be sure that not a man of the Democratic party can here- 
after be brought to the support of Mr. Webster or Mr. Clay, in any 
conjuncture or on any emergency. And if any such expectation 
is entertained in any quarter, great and bitter will the disap- 
pointment be when the time of trial shall come. A sardonic 
grin will be vouchsafed, but not one vote. 

Yet is there a possibility that there is virtue enough in the 



1850] NECESSITY OF SUPPORTING THE PRESIDENT. 25 

administration policy on the slavery question to save the Whigs 
in spite of themselves ? It may be that it will force itself upon 
Congress and the country by virtue of its own innate strength 
and wisdom. There is a chance yet that no other can prevail ; 
and that in spite of indifference, in spite of affected contempt, in 
spite of secret and open hostility, it will yet, through the very 
necessities of the case, become the ruling and controlling influ- 
ence, the enforced mould, to which politicians and statesmen 
must submit and shape themselves, however reluctantly. Should 
this prove to be so, it will exhibit a signal evidence of the sagacity 
and wisdom of the old hero at the head of affairs. Let us still 
hope that " the stone which the builders rejected shall become 
the head of the corner. ' ' 

But this depends upon a zealous, hearty, and energetic sup- 
port of the administration and its policy. The Whigs have 
elected General Taylor President, and unless they stand by him 
■and his policy they are doomed, and the administration is doomed. 
If rival forces are allowed to drag it from its position, it will be 
to drag it to destruction ; and its power will be wrenched 
by an unlineal hand, no Whig succeeding. There is nothing 
but utter wreck ahead for the Whigs in the Free States if the 
" platform'' of General Taylor on the slavery question is aban- 
doned. And the Whig press and the Whig men everywhere 
should come boldly out and say so. Let them strengthen and 
encourage the action of the Whig force in Congress, who, while 
being nearly unanimous in opinion in regard to the wisdom of 
the President's policy, are yet vexed and chagrined at the per- 
sonal influences and individual interests that, to some extent, are 
dividing the voice, and thus distracting the vigor, of the party. 
The administration of General Taylor should be recognized and 
supported as a legitimate power, over and above all individual 
names and personal reputation. The success of the administra- 
tion and the safety and interests of the Whig party itself depend 
upon the general recognition and effective acknowledgment that 
it is so. J. S. P. 



26 LETTER FROM EDITOR BOSTON COURIER. [April 

[From the Editor of the Boston Courier.] 

Boston, April 15, 1850. 

My dear Sir : I am quite as fully persuaded as yourself that political 
matters are in a most critical state. It's more the pity that honest 
men like you and me have not the power to make everybody obey us 
in marching straight ahead out of these troubles. /, for one, cannot 
have my own way in the matter, as you will see by what follows. You 
know the Courier has taken the side of Webster in the California and 
Proviso question. I have not space to tell the whole story, but the 
thing is done and we must stand upon it. You have spoken very freely 
upon all political subjects through our columns, and I wish to God things 
were so that nothing would lie in the way of your exertions in the same 
career. But what can we do ? The matter has got beyond the limit of 
speculative opinions and assumed a practical shape. We have now a 
real job to do in sustaining Dan, and it is impossible to get ahead if we 
pull down with one hand what we build up with the other. People are 
quoting your letters against us, and making capital out of them for 
t'other side. Just look at the newspapers. Small causes we don't 
mind, but this is cutting our own throat. 

I feel this embarrassment the more sensibly when I reflect on the 
obligation we are under to you for your long-continued and valuable 
labor in the service of the Courier. Nothing would give me greater 
pleasure than the ability to make you some recompense for the same, but 
Heaven knows I am as void of the pecuniary as of the political appliances 
and means to do such things. In short, there are such influences 
gathered round me that I must crave a very liberal forbearance from 
you in explaining how much I cannot do just now. I heartily wish all 
party politics at the devil. 

In plain English, the political train of the Courier must run for the 
present on a single track. Don't think hard of me for saying I cannot 
publish your letters against old Dan. The truth is, a negotiation is now 
on foot for the transfer of the proprietorship of the Courier, which will 
place it under new management, and in this conjuncture I am restricted 
by business obligations from printing political matters of a certain char- 
acter. This is confidential between ourselves ; no one knows it but the 
parties concerned. 

When I am free to fight on my own hook, I hope you and I may go 
shoulder to shoulder. Till then I must trust to your candor and good 
sense to put the right construction on my behavior, and, with a thousand 
thanks for your past services, I remain, 

Yours truly, S. Kettell. 

J. S. Pike, Esq. 



1850] BENTON'S FIERCE OPPOSITION. 27 

[Prom the Editor of the Portland Advertiser.] 

Portland, April 17, 1850. 
Friend Pike : I have been rather old Hunkerish in my feelings in 
times past, but I am not at all proud of the present position of Clay and 
Webster ! 

If the Senate tack that long tail to California, I hope the House will 
cut it off or defeat the whole —if they have to call the yeas and nays for 
it. I should go in for a row before I would submit to it. 

Very truly, your friend, H. Carter. 



PISTOLS DRAWN IN THE SENATE — FOOTE AND BENTON. 
[From the Boston Courier.] 

Washington, April 18, 1850. 

The proceedings in the Senate yesterday are deserving of reci- 
tal. So far as the debate went, it was for the most part a war of 
the giants. As to the pistolling it was no war at all. 

When we went in, a little after one o'clock, Mr. Benton had 
the floor, and was speaking in a mingled strain of humor, irony, 
broad caricature, and energy, against the idea of mixing up Cali- 
fornia with the other subjects to be referred to Mr. Foote's com- 
mittee. He was sneering, sarcastic, and biting. The immediate 
occasion of the debate was a plan that Mr. Clay had devised to 
cut the throat of all Benton's amendments at one stroke of the 
razor. Mr. Benton had offered fourteen of them to the resolu- 
tion appointing the committee, on which he said he had deter- 
mined to demand the yeas and nays, and also to debate them, so 
far as might be necessary. He likewise intimated, at the time 
of offering them, some days ago, that he might have to propose 
more ; but of this he said, " deponent saith not, for deponent 
knoweth not." Yesterday Mr. Clay introduced a general pro- 
position to negative all the amendments at once, and all that 
might hereafter be offered, by a general declaration that the 
Senate would not instruct the committee at all ; Mr. Benton's 
amendments being for the purpose of prescribing what the com- 
mittee should and should not do. Mr. Clay having previously 
led the debate on the formation of the committee, and having 
now presented this summary mode of killing off the protracted 
opposition threatened by Mr. Benton to its formation, was of 



28 MR. CLAY'S STRIKING APPEARANCE. [April 

course a principal mark in Mr. Benton's sallies. And while the 
contumacious, intrepid, and able senator from Missouri was very 
courteous in tone towards his equally intrepid and unflinching 
antagonist, his remarks to the general subject were very bitter 
and scorching. And while, as a matter of taste, a good deal that 
he said might be excepted to, yet no one who heard him would 
deny the exhibition, on his part, of great strength, great pun- 
gency, and great skill. 

Mr. Clay listened uneasily. He appeared savage and deter- 
mined. His usual bland and facile countenance, so often looking 
as pleasant and changeable as the dimpled face of a lake spark- 
ling under a summer's sun, was now like the surface of the 
same sheet of water with black clouds lying closely down upon 
it, and with its foamy ripples torn up by fierce gusts. He took 
the floor the moment Mr. Benton concluded. His personal 
appearance was a spectacle. His face and head were flushed 
with a sort of grayish blood ; his wide mouth compressed with 
that iron grip which never fails to indicate fierce and determined 
purposes. His iron-gray hair hung loose like a roused lion's 
mane well shaken, and altogether concealed his ears from sight. 
His small, aristocratic-looking hands quivered with agitation. 
His face spoke a thousand emotions. His black dress-coat hung 
loose about his person like a wrapper. His double-breasted vest 
buttoned to his chin, with his gold watch-guard dangling over his 
bosom, to the handling of which his active fingers often resorted, 
completed the tout ensemble of his presence. He went on with 
great animation in reply. He wore the mien of a champion who 
felt his power, and who was intensely determined to exert it and 
to triumph. He tossed his head, flashed fire from his eyes, 
scowled fiercely, stamped convulsively upon the floor, shook 
thunders from his tongue, and terrors from his countenance. 
The Henry Clay of yesterday was the great leader, bespeaking 
himself suited for any emergency of peace or war. During the 
day he was on his feet several times, and on each occasion showed 
the same earnest and impassioned demeanor. Once he was 
called forth by Mr. Hale, who made a more happy effort than he 
usually does. Mr. Hale declared his belief that in the existing 
controversy the South would triumph. His points were good, 
his manner less frothy than common, and his rhetoric more 



1850] FOOTE'S ASSAULT ON BENTON. 29 

pointed and effective. In his closing remarks he almost rose to 
genuine eloquence. Mr. Clay precipitated himself upon Hale 
with great temper and vehemence. But Hale's positions were 
too impregnable to be carried, and the old veteran gained no 
success by his mettlesome onslaught. 

It was a singular sight throughout. Mr. Clay led the dis- 
unionists and the Democracy in general, while Benton headed 
the main Whig force. The sympathies of the Whig spectators 
were all with Benton, while Clay was the god of the Democrats. 
The Whigs admired and cheered the great expunger. The 
Democrats idolized and glorified the great embodiment. Thus 
the world wags. As a parliamentary match, it was just about 
equal. Benton's knowledge, experience, doggednesss, resources, 
and indomitable perseverance can find no match in the Senate 
but Clay. Clay's great and versatile powers in the tactics of 
legislation as well as in debate, his remarkable assurance and 
dictatorial manner, is an overmatch for anybody but Benton. 
They are alike intolerant, alike intrepid, alike imperious, alike 
unbending and indomitable. 

In the present controversy Benton labors under the disadvan- 
tage of leading the minority, and in the end must be worsted. 
But his gallantry and chivalric obstinacy, while to most it seems 
useless, and therefore out of place, we admire. We love a gen- 
uine exhibition of pluck and mettle when displayed in a right- 
eous cause like that which Benton advocates — the independent 
admission of California. We loathe all scampering cowards who 
run because danger threatens, or defeat seems inevitable. There 
is no Lacedemonian bravery in this. 

After the principal performance came the after-piece. Mr. 
Foote, who had held in all day, got nervous on his empty stomach 
at about five o'clock, and rose to reply in his hectoring manner 
to some remarks that Benton had just finished, bearing upon 
slavery and the Southern address. He had gone on but a few 
minutes, made but about half a dozen fierce gesticulations, and 
stamped his feet but two or three times, and indulged in but one 
or two of his vocal roars, preparatory or introductory to some 
grand demonstration, when he alluded in significant language to 
the senator from Missouri in person. 

Benton immediately arose, hastily pushed back his chair, 



30 FOOTE DRAWS HIS PISTOL. [April 

knocking a tumbler from his desk as he moved, and rushed out 
into the passage in the rear of the desks of the senators, and was 
proceeding rapidly towards Foote, when he was surrounded by 
friends, who saw what was taking, and about to take, place, and 
who partially arrested his progress. Foote, who had his eye 
upon Benton, seeing him coming, stopped suddenly short in his 
speech, and fled down the aisle before him, towards the area in 
front of the Vice-President's chair, tugging away at a breast- 
pocket of his coat, out of which there reluctantly came at last a 
long rifle-barrelled pistol, which he forthwith began to cock, 
holding its muzzle in the direction of the senator from Missouri. 
Benton had now taken his back tracks, and was forcing his way 
down a parallel aisle, to get at Foote, when he got a sight of the 
pistol, which Foote's friends had by this time seized upon and 
taken away from him. Thereupon Old Bullion began to stamp 
and roar like a mad bull. He threw back his coat with both 
hands and declared that he was unarmed and desired his friends 

to get out of his way and ' ' let the d d assassin shoot. ' ' He 

declared that Foote had manifested a purpose to assassinate him. 
He was to be a victim of assassination, etc., etc. He was strug- 
gling with half a dozen friends who were trying to hold him, and 
in such a frenzy of rage that his language was broken and inco- 
herent. Mr. Foote, in the midst of a circle of his friends, de- 
clared that he only meant to defend himself, and began to huddle 
back to his seat. Mr. Benton had now got hustled nearly back 
to his. The galleries had sprung to their feet, and so had every 
senator and spectator, and then came loud cries of " Order !" 
"Take your seats!" "Proceed to business!" etc., etc. Mr. 
Benton foamed and sat down, and foamed and rose again, his 
friends still pulling him back and trying to pacify him. Foote 
explained and re-explained. But Benton continued to vent noth- 
ing but fitful gusts of passion. Foote became very calm, and 
wanted to go on and finish his speech, but the Senate said No, 
and adjourned, after appointing a committee of investigation. 

This morning the Senate was filled early. The galleries 
especially were crowded. Something in the shape of a grand 
Jmale was expected. At one o'clock the " orders of the day," 
which meant the continuance of the proceedings of yesterday, 
were moved by Mr. King, of Alabama. Mr. Foote, who was so 



1800] THE MORNING AFTER TEE FRAY. 31 

unceremoniously cut short in his speech by Mr. Benton's bellig- 
erent demonstration yesterday, rose. The Senate was silent. 
The galleries leaned forward. Mr. Benton sat in his seat twirl- 
ing a piece of paper. Would the little Mississippi senator go 
on ? Would he allude again to the burly and truculent senator 
from Missouri ? Would there be another rush, another melee, 
another scamper, and another pistol drawn ? These were the 
queries of the galleries and various and sundry spectators. They 
were in an agony of suspense to know. All hung tremblingly 
upon Mr. Foote's opening words. He relieved it by mildly say- 
ing that in view of the perilous condition of the country, the 
pressing necessity of action at so critical a juncture, he would 
forego his personal wishes to make a speech, and consent to pro- 
ceed at once to the much more important duty of voting. He 
then sat down. Mr. Benton made a deep inspiration, which ex- 
panded his physical proportions sensibly. Everybody else drew 
a long breath also. Mr. Mangum followed, and expressed the 
hope that Mr. Clay would not press his wholesale method of 
destroying Mr. Benton's amendments, against which that senator 
protested so vehemently yesterday, as it would be likely to pro- 
long the unprofitable debate indulged in quite too long already. 
Thereupon Mr. Clay rose and withdrew his proposition, and ex- 
pressed his hope that the Senate would now proceed and vote 
upon the Missouri senator's amendments seriatim, and without 
debate, on the side of the opposition to those amendments at 
least. Several other senators rose amid profound quiet and ex- 
pressed the same hope. When all were through, Old Bullion 
straightened up to his full dimensions. He remarked in a 
measured and quiet way, with much sarcasm of tone, that he 
was delighted with the harmony of the Senate this morning ; 
and he discovered also that we were not only to have a harmo- 
nious Senate, but a dumb Senate. 

He then related a humorous story, and said he had already 
uttered about all the arguments he had to offer, and should not 
probably therefore make any more talk on the subject. A vote 
was then quietly taken on his various amendments. Thus the 
distinguished senator accomplished both of the objects he under- 
took yesterday. He silenced Mr. Foote, and he brought the 
Senate to a vote on each one of his several propositions, all of 






32 GENERAL TAYLOR'S TRIALS. [Aran, 

which were voted down. This he could not help. He tri- 
umphed, however, wherever triumph was possible. Though 
beaten, he is still victor. J. S. P. 



[From the Editor of the Boston Courier.] 

Boston, April 22, 1850. 
My Dear Sir : I return your letter, agreeably to your request. It 
went sadly against my grain to withhold it from the press, for no one 
can like it better than I do. If I were not hampered by business obliga- 
tions in this particular matter, there should be no impediment to the 
swing of your broad ax in the Courier; nothing is better relished here. 
I hope the matters in question will be all arranged before many days, 
when you shall hear from me again. At present you may have the 
satisfaction of knowing that what you have done will tend to great good. 
I should be most happy to see satisfaction of another sort added to this. 
Yours trulv, S. Kettell. 

J. S. Pike, Esq. 



,) 



GENERAL TAYLOR S TRIALS. 
[From the Boston Courier.] 

Washington, April 20, 1850. 

" "We cannot all be masters, nor all masters 
Cannot be truly followed." 

Insubordination is catching. Like master like man. Horace 
Greeley was never nearer right than when he described the Whig 
party to be a "loose aggregation of independent thinkers." It 
is infinitely amusing to witness the illustration of this observa- 
tion just now, in relation to the Cabinet of General Taylor. 
There was a great disaffection at its first selection. Of course 
there was. There would have been such under any circumstances 
of choice. 

If certain gentlemen could not have seats in the Cabinet, they 
and their friends were bound to be grievously disappointed and 
greatly provoked under any and all circumstances. Kick up a 
row they would, if they could. What more natural than such 
an explosion of virtuous indignation ? So also with every editor, 
every newspaper correspondent, every man — in high station and 
in low — who wanted an office for himself or his friend, who de- 



1850] CRUSADE AGAINST THE CABINET. 33 

sired a removal here and an appointment there, who wanted this 
claim allowed and that case favorably considered — all, of all 
sorts, who asked for spoils, plunder, favors, thrift, or advance- 
ment under the new regime, and did not get what they wanted, 
would still, under the most pure, the most able, the most wise, 
the most perfect administration that can be conceived of, have 
raised just the same clamor that they now do. He who believes 
that this clamor, in the main (we do not mean to say altogether), 
arises from any other than these petty personal interests and dis- 
appointments, 

" Incurs derision for his easy faith." 

A single example illustrates the whole matter. It was pub- 
licly notorious last spring that the editor of the New York Ex- 
press was disappointed and chagrined at some appointments in 
New York City, and that he vented columns of indignation upon 
the administration at the time. Having nursed his wrath and 
kept it warm, he is now joining the hue and cry of the New 
York Herald and kindred spirits in their present crusade upon 
General Taylor's Cabinet. This is a transparent kind of oppo- 
sition, to which attention need only be drawn to be derided and 
disregarded. Yet it is a fair sample, we believe, of the character 
of a great part of the opposition waged against the Cabinet in 
general, and truly displays the leading desire for a change. 
There lurks beneath the outward show some petty spite or hope 
of petty favor. There is not, among all the steaming vapors fill- 
ing the air, one pure mountain blast of fresh and genuine public 
sentiment. What do the people care whether this man or that 
man is in or out of the Cabinet, so that affairs go on smoothly 
and properly ? They did not elect the Cabinet — they elected 
General Taylor ; and he, and he alone is responsible, and will be 
held responsible for the character and conduct of the administra- 
tion. While their confidence in him remains unimpaired, they 
will believe him to be able to decide as to who he should have 
for his Cabinet officers. And when the character of General 
Taylor is impeached, we shall know that honesty is dead among 
men. We look upon the wholesale onslaught on the Cabinet, at 
this particular juncture, open and covert, as not only selfish but 
frivolous. 

The Galphin claim would seem to be made the occasion for 



34 INSUBORDINATION IN THE RANKS. [April 

it, but the causes are, for the most part, those to which we 
have briefly alluded. A single one of a fine herd having been 
suddenly suspected of having had his head in the forbidden 
meal-tub, before any time is given for investigation of the fact 
even, the cry is, " Knock them all in the head at once ; set on 
the dogs ; cut, slash, and hamstring. ' ' The whole affair is like a 
hustle in a crowd at a country muster on the intimation of a 
fight. The multitude is in a blaze, and every one who has an 
extra quantity of bile in his stomach, or of combativeness or 
something worse in his head, rushes to the melee, glad of any 
kind of reason or opportunity to unplug his surplus spite or vent 
his belligerent temper. 

We reckon that this condition of things, if it does not abso- 
lutely grow out of, is yet greatly aggravated and influenced by 
the state of the party. Insubordination reigns in the ranks, and 
naturally enough. We see the old leaders branching off on their 
own hook. And why should not the young ones think it a good 
operation to do so too ? This circumstance, as we have on a for- 
mer occasion observed, leads to distraction and disintegration, 
and is, in a party point of view, a precedent and an example 
fraught with nothing but mischief. Can we wonder, on a full 
view of the circumstances of the party, to hear, as we sometimes 
do, the declaration that not thirty of the hundred and thirty 
Whigs in Congress are in favor of the retention of the present 
Cabinet by President Taylor ? Why, not to refer to gentlemen 
in the condition of Mr. Brooks, who does not see the great num- 
ber of Whigs in that body who might properly think that they 
each, severally, stood a fair chance of getting into the new Cabi- 
net, in case of a general break up and dissolution of the old ? 
And is this consideration nothing ? But we disbelieve the allega- 
tion, and intimate no such selfish motives for the conduct of hon- 
orable men and good Whigs. Yet we may venture to say that 
any special indorsement of General Taylor's advisers by promi- 
nent Whigs in or out of Congress, at this particular juncture, 
may be likened to a supplementary indorsement of a discounted 
note on which the money had already been obtained by the prin- 
cipals, and of which such supplementary indorsers would get no 
share. This may be a very homely view of the case, but we be- 
lieve there is truth in it nevertheless. 



1850] RECONSTRUCTION OF THE CABINET. 35 

If our views are not unfounded, the dismissal of the existing 
Cabinet would be an act of extraordinary weakness, and the idea 
of it cannot be entertained for a moment. New administrations 
are apt to be pestered with foolish notions of reconstruction, but 
these are usually but the folly of fools. In the present emer- 
gency we reckon that the recomposition of the Cabinet would 
work great injury of the party. It would unsettle that necessary 
confidence now just being established. 

If it be true that the friability of the party, to use no stronger 
term, is at the present time very marked, what is to be gained 
by a change which shall be but a substitution of one batch of 
crumbling materials for another ? If the party will not follow 
the administration as now constituted, will a reconstruction of the 
Cabinet help that ? If the present Cabinet is to go out, who is 
to go in ? Is it to be Mr. Clay and his friends, or Mr. Webster 
and his friends, or who is it to be ? These are questions more 
easily asked than answered. 

It is easy to tear down, but not so easy to build up. " No 
matter who, so we have a change," is no answer to the real diffi- 
culties of the case, viewing it in this aspect, namely, that the 
Whig party, whose whole life has been opposition, and nothing but 
opposition, and which has never been disciplined to forbearance, 
or trained to the support of a national administration, and being, 
in truth, a "loose aggregation of independent thinkers," will 
follow one Cabinet lead as well as another. So that we can see 
nothing to be gained by a change. Especially must we come to 
this conclusion in view of the present double, if not triple-headed 
look of the party. Indeed we might well conclude in this view 
that the result of a new contest between existing interests in the 
party, in the event of a dissolution of the present Cabinet, would 
be much like that of the quarrel of the cats of Kilkenny. We might 
thus well rest in a state of masterly inactivity, if there were really 
valid grounds for a change, regarding the greater evils that would 
be likely to follow. But when we reflect on what the desire of 
change mainly rests, we may well dismiss the idea of it with utter 
disregard as the emanation of spleen and folly. 

And now, having said this much, we wish to say a little more. 
The Cabinet of General Taylor has sins to answer for. There 
are good grounds of complaint against it. But those sins we 



36 MR. CLAY AS AN ACTOR. [April 

regard to be venial and not mortal. Purgatory will suffice to 
wash them away. Perhaps that through which it is now passing 
will be sufficient. At least we hope so. But the deficiencies of 
the Cabinet are of a political and not of a national character. 
As public officers, they have undoubtedly discharged their duties 
with singular ability and fidelity. As party men (with perhaps 
a single exception) they have not. And this is the only true 
and valid groimd of complaint against them individually or col- 
lectively ; and it is a ground of complaint which has sunk deep 
in the hearts of many good and unselfish Whigs. 

But it has not been made the ground of any desire for change, 
but for reform. The members of the Cabinet have not fully ac- 
cepted their positions. They cannot be said to have abdicated 
their political functions and relations, for they never discharged 
or assumed them. There has been a want of a just recognition of 
their obligations in this respect. And it is a grievance that has 
been sensibly felt throughout the Whig party. The pulsations 
of the extremities have been made feeble and weak by a languid 
and sluggish flow at the heart. For this the members of the 
Cabinet are in a great degree responsible. It is a difficulty, 
however, not past medicine, requiring not even surgery in its- 
present state. But it is one that has led already to great mis- 
chief in the political system, and the demand for a remedy is urgent. 
It can be, and ought to be, speedily applied. Farther than this 
it is not meet for us here and now to go. We approve the 
maxim of Napoleon, " People should wash their dirty linen at 
home." J. S. P. 



MR. CLAY AS AN ACTOR. 
[From the Boston Courier.] 

Washington, April 22, 1850. 
Mr. Clay is a great actor. If he had gone upon the stage, he 
would have driven the Keans and Kembles out of the field. 
After the final vote to appoint Foote's committee of thirteen was 
taken, he rose with great pomp and solemnity and said : " Mr. 
President, I congratulate you upon the arrival of this auspicious 
hour. I congratulate the Senate, I congratulate the country, I 
congratulate mankind upon the hopeful prospect of a happy issue 



1850] MR. CLAY A GREAT LEADER. 37 

out of the perils which encompass us, that is afforded by the ap- 
pointment of this committee. " This is certainly a grand flourish. 
But reduced to sober prose what does it amount to ? Why, that 
a Senate committee has been appointed to report in favor of al- 
lowing the South to carry slaves into New Mexico and Deseret. 
This is the whole story — the beginning and end, the Alpha and 
Omega, the head, stomach, and bowels of the entire subject. 
There is nothing else in the case. 

And now we should like to ask if this is a matter for which 
the Senate, the country, and mankind should be thus pompously 
congratulated ? Ah ! when will the world cease to be hum- 
bugged ? The solemn farce through which we are now going is 
profoundly humiliating. Mr. Clay is the genius that guides it. 
He is the Napoleon of the movement. His swelling declamation 
reminds us of the Napoleonic bulletins of old. He is playing 
another grand act in the drama of life. He is starring it on a 
magnificent scale. He goes for points and hits which shall bring 
down the greatest applause from pit and gallery. Well, this is 
his nature. He but fulfils his destiny. He was born to play a 
part, and he performs it. We cannot quarrel with him for this. 
But we must be allowed to express our chagrin that in the part 
he is now playing for the benefit of slavery (of course, during 
his engagement he must take a benefit for himself) he procures 
can die -snuffers and sceneshifters from among the agents of free- 
dom, who were sent down here from the North to hiss the whole 
performance off the stage. 

So be it. Pluck is a rare quality ; and a man like Mr. Clay 
can coax, drive, scare, or humbug almost any man out of his 
opinions that he really sets upon in earnest. If the Omnibus bill 
is carried, Mr. Clay is the man who carries it. It is a dead cer- 
tainty that it goes through the Senate. It is likely to pass the 
House. There is no great leader there who can stand up suc- 
cessfully against Mr. Clay, backed as he is by so much Northern 
defection. Mr. Clay takes this man by the arm, and pats the 
other on the back, and by means of his magnetic power, his im- 
periousness of temper, his dictatorial bearing, his superciliousness 
of tone, his knowledge of and sympathy with men, his persuasive 
manners, his oily and delightful fluency, the inexpressible charm 
of his colloquial powers, his overbearing assumptions, his fierce 



y 



38 APPEAL TO THE WHIGS. [April 

and implacable temper, his lofty and generous impulses, his no- 
ble sentiments, his impassioned eloquence — all curiously com- 
pounded and blended until they form one of the most remarka- 
ble and influential characters that ever lived — being such a 
man, we say, he will almost certainly break down the House and 
force his compromise through. And to him (if to any Whig) 
will redound all the glory and enure all the political advantage 
of this most notable transaction. 

Mr. Webster is out of the case. His independent votes on 
Wednesday last lost him the mushroom Southern friends he 
gained by his speech, and Clay is now the sole God of their idol- 
atry. He is warmed up to fever heat at the prospect before him, 
and having sprang upon the box and grasped the reins, he is now 
dashing ahead, Jehu-like, six in hand, boldly flinging his old 
motto to the wind, " The devil take the hindmost." Those who 
do not want to be run over must get out of the way. But if 
there are to be victims in the race, as there will be if this tri- 
umphant charioteering be not arrested, we say to Mr. Clay and 
his coadjutors in the language of the seer : 

' ' Woe, woe, to the riders that trample them down. ' ' 

And now having suggested the probabilities of the case, we 
have a word to say about its possibilities, and the duties of the 
friends of the administration in the present emergency. The 
administration have a policy for the settlement of the question 
which is conciliatory, wise, prudent, and satisfactory. Let it be 
upheld with unflinching firmness. Let the organs of the admin- 
istration at Washington discard their fears of, or their attachment 
to, great names, and come boldly out and plant themselves upon 
this policy. It is no time for shilly-shallying. Let us have no 
more looking one way and rowing another. Let us have an ad- 
ministration party supporting an administration policy. And let 
the prominent Whigs of the House rise up and obey the instincts 
of their nature and the promptings of their understandings, and 
manfully lead in this crisis. 

There never was a grander opportunity for a man, or for 
men, in the House of Representatives, to win distinction and 
achieve an honorable name. The hour is come ; who will asso- 
ciate his name with it, and acquire an imperishable renown ? 



1850] AN INTREPID SPIRIT DEMANDED. 39 

The administration will fall into contempt, and the Whig party 
into dissolution, unless a combined, powerful, hearty stand is 
made on the President's policy in the House. And we repeat 
that the organs of the administration at Washington, by being 
so hesitant and dainty in supporting that policy, and so mealy- 
mouthed towards those who are endeavoring to thwart its action, 
and break down its character and influence, are inflicting a vital 
injury, scarcely less than to abandon its support altogether. We 
are pained at the torpor of these journals on this subject. We 
will not term it pusillanimity. But we hope to see them arouse 
from their slumbers and fully discharge their duties. Let us at 
least have a manful defence of the policy of the administration 
they profess to support. It is not becoming the lieutenants of 
the hero of Buena Vista to tamely make terms with the enemy, or 
to ingloriously surrender at discretion. It would be far more in 
keeping with the character of that lion-hearted man for them 
to nail their colors to the mast, and go down, if they must go 
down, with their flag flying. 

For the safety of the Whig party, for the honor of the Presi- 
dent, for the credit of the administration, for the glory of the 
cause of freedom, we hope to see, within the two weeks that are 
to elapse before we get the report of the Omnibus committee, 
something like an intrepid and determined demonstration on the 
part of General Taylor's friends, in the press and in Congress. 
The administration force will soon get the reputation of belong- 
ing to the class invertehrata, unless it soon exhibit signs of pos- 
sessing some backbone. We do not think it at all becoming that 
the conduct of its professed supporters should be such as to give 
color to the imputation that the policy of General Taylor, in 
relation to the great question agitating the country, is as flexible 
as a Mexican hat, and can be jammed out of shape with as little 
detriment. 

We freely accord to Mr. Clay a desire to compose existing 
agitations. But we cannot help seeing that in the present move- 
ment he is also stimulated by other considerations. He is evi- 
dently rejuvenated and invigorated by his hopes. We do him / 
no injustice in saying that he has his eye upon the Presidential 
canvass of 1852. If he has not, we will thank any doubter to 
give us a reason why he came back to the Senate after his for- 



4:0 MR. WEBSTER INDIFFERENT. [April 

mal leave-taking ? Yet this is not the only reason. We may as 
well come out with the truth, and say, that we believe Mr. Clay 
has no love for General Taylor or the administration, and that to 
successfully thwart their policy on the territorial question would 
afford him no little gratification. And yet nothing of this is 
inconsistent with the belief that Mr. Clay really considers his 
own plan for the settlement of this question to be better than 
any other. A scrutiny of a man's motives for his judgments, 
however, sometimes has a tendency to shake our faith in those 
judgments. 

Mr. Webster has at no time expressed any confidence in the 
action of the Omnibus committee, and only reluctantly consented 
to its appointment. His last votes in the Senate were given 
against the union, by that committee, of the admission of Cali- 
fornia with any other subject. He does not concur with Mr. 
Clay in the alleged importance of that committee, and has more 
than once expressed his distrust of its being able to accomplish 
the professed object of its creation. For what it will do, there- 
fore, he will seek no credit, and for its errors and failures incur 
no responsibility. We see nothing, indeed, in Mr. Webster's 
course, thus far, to forbid the supposition that he may yet give 
his support to the administration policy. He has not, at least, 
like Mr. Clay, fully committed himself against it. J. S. P. 



[From the Editor of the Boston Courier. ~\ 

Boston, April 25, 1850. 

My Dear Sir : Nothing objectionable in your last. T'other one 
has made quite a fortune for itself as far as publicity goes. You will see 
by the accompanying Albany paper how it is relished in certain 
quarters. The sweetness of the praise bestowed upon you by one critic 
is tempered by a drop of acid from the galipot of another. On the 
whole, you may congratulate yourself highly on the success of that 
scratch ; none but a sharp one could have caused so much rubbing. I 
could send you many other copies of the letter and the comment thereon, 
but suppose vou have already seen abundance of them. 

You and I have but one opinion of the charlatanry and egoism of 
Clay. It is a portentous humbug that has ridden the Whig party like a 



1850] LETTER FROM HORACE GREELEY. 41 

nightmare. I would as soon buy real estate in the tail of a comet as I 
would invest political capital in his principles. 

My hope and trust is that you may never be hampered in the free 
expression of your thoughts through the columns of the Courier. The 
reputation which you have gained for it is great. I wish the indepen- 
dence of a public journal were a means of making it profitable, but I am 
ashamed for our enlightened public to say that the dullest, stupidest, 
most unideaed and slavish of all printed sheets are the very ones most 
certain of success in money matters. People are very eager to read what 
they will not pay for. I know that by abundant experience. 

I am now awaiting with the utmost impatience the result of the 
negotiations which I mentioned to you, and which will decide whether 
I am to stay in or go out of the concern. Whatever happens, I shall 
always feel the great obligations we have been under to you, and always 
be ready to do what I can to requite them. 

Yours truly, S. Kbttell. 

J. S. Pike, Esq. 



[From Horace Greeley.] 

New York, April 24, 1850. 

Dear Sir : Will you write me some letters ? You are writing such 
abominably bad ones for the Boston Courier that I fancy you are putting 
all your unreason into these, and can give me some of the pure juice. 
Try ! 

What I want is a daily letter (when there is any thing to say) on the 
doings of Congress, commenting on any thing spicy or interesting, and 
letting the readers make the right comments, rather than see that you are 
making them. Then I should like a dispatch in the evening, if any thing 
comes out, especially if any appointments shall have been acted on in 
executive. You know how to get them. 

Well, are you ready to do me $10, $15, or $20 worth of work 
(you to value it) for a while, until it shall please you to come away or 
I can send some one on to Washington ? If yes, please set about it and 
send me word. If not, condescend to say so. What I am after is 
news. Yours, Horace Greeley. 

James S. Pike, Esq. 



42 LETTER FROM GEN. SCHOULER, BOSTON ATLAS. [April 



[From Gen. Schouler, Editor of the Boston Atlas.] 

House of Representatives, ) 
Boston, April 25, 1850. J 

My Dear Pike : You don't know how glad I was to receive your 
letter of the 20th inst. The spirit of the letter was in unison with my 
own feelings and with the feelings of all good Whigs in this quarter. 
The ways of Congress to some are " past finding out," but they are 
now being discovered. I know that I do not overstate the fact when I 
tell you that our good old President is daily increasing in popular favor 
and regard, and Clay and Webster are decreasing in a like ratio. 

We are determined here to stand by the administration, and no 
longer pay court to Hunkerdom anyhow. I have taken an unequivocal 
position, and I shall sink or swim with it. I find, however, that very 
little nerve is required to sustain this ground, for the people here are all 
of one accord. Even those who signed the letter to Mr. Webster, and 
were recalled by a certain speech to a " true sense of their constitutional 
duties," do not find fault with me, with one or two exceptions, and they 
are the ' ' born thralls of Cedric, ' ' the Wambas and Gurths, for whom 
I care nothing, and who have little or no influence upon the popular 
mind because they are known, known even without the brass collar. 

The Whig party in our State stand firm as a rock, and I have no 
doubt that we shall draw in a large part of the Freesoil party to the 
support of the administration. I don't know what we shall do in the 
Fourth District. The election takes place on the 29th of May. I think, 
however, that whoever the Whig Convention nominates will be elected. 
The Whig candidate, you know, has declined. He may be renominated 
again. His letter of declension was first-rate, and has added to his 
popularity, and may cause him to be put on the track again. It is possi- 
ble that Hon. Samuel Hoar will receive the nomination ; if so, he will 
certainly be elected, as the Freesoil men and Whigs can both elect him. 
I have known him for twenty years, and there is no better Whig living. 
He was opposed to General Taylor, but he has been satisfied with the 
old man, and he told me this forenoon that every thing which the 
administration had done since it came into power met with his hearty 
concurrence. He has had a seat alongside of me in the House for nearly 
four months, and I know of no better Whig anywhere. Still it is 
doubtful whether he will be nominated, or, if nominated, that he would 
accept to run against Palfrey. JVoits verrons. 

Your letters to the Courier are just the fodder, and I read them with 
great delight ; they will do good. 



1850] WAR ON GENERAL TAYLOR'S ADMINISTRATION. 43 

I really hope that you will write me often. I like your letters 
hugely. Give my respects to the " honorable Truman," and all other 
good and true Taylor men. 

Yours truly, Wm, Schouler. 



WAB ON THE ADMINISTRATION. 
[Prom the New York Tribune.} 

Washington, Friday, April 26. 
This administration is destined to be subjected to one of the 
most bitter, malevolent, unscrupulous Oppositions that ever ar- 
rayed itself against a party in power. This Opposition has 
smothered itself as well as it could during the pendency of the 
slavery question before Congress. For the settlement of this 
question, agreeably to the Locofoco programme to be announced 
by the Omnibus committee of Mr. Foote, is essential to secure 
the success of the tactics of the Opposition leaders. The object 
of the settlement is to appease the South, restore the harmony 
of the Opposition party, and reinstate it in power. This settle- 
ment is to be made to turn on Northern Locofoco votes, and 
thus its merits and its profits are to be claimed for their party. 
The Administration, having a plan of its own not so satisfactory 
to the South as the Omnibus bill, is to be assailed, so soon as the 
question is settled, as having been opposed to the South through- 
out the controversy, and appeals are to be made in all directions 
in that quarter to league against it. But to accomplish this 
notable scheme the hostility to the Administration has been 
kept under as much as possible, in order that there might be no 
trifling among the few Whigs, who, by favoring the Omnibus 
bill, will contribute to the successful execution of the plan. 
But just now elated with the hopeful prospect of its success, the 
members of the Opposition are getting rampant in their manifes- 
tation of hostility to the Administration. They have been long 
feeding their fancy with the visions of the glorious havoc they 
anticipated over its dead body. The military heroes of the 
House, so long out of service, thirst for blood, and will not wait. 
Thus it is, the Secretary of the Interior has suddenly become 
the subject of an investigation of a committee headed by one of 



-44 THE OMNIBUS BILL A TRAP. [April 

these gentlemen. And here let us say, by way of parenthesis, 
that this investigation will turn out to be one of the best things 
that ever happened to the Secretary. The inquiry set on foot 
by Colonel. Richardson will only show the scrupulous exactness 
of Mr. Ewing in respect to the matter of claims. But these gen- 
tlemen long to begin irpon the Administration. They believe it 
can be put down though pure as the angels. And they pine to 
engage in the work. So sure is the Southern Opposition of the 
triumph of the Omnibus bill that it is even boldly announced that 
the Northern men who are nominated to place under the Ad- 
ministration, who are so sectional and fanatical as to still adhere 
to the now obsolete doctrine of the Ordinance of 1787, and who 
non-concur in the Omnibus plan of settlement, are to be cut up 
root and branch in the Senate. No man, nominated to any na- 
tional position is to be confirmed unless he be imbued with the 
sentiment of compromise. In other words, if a man shall be in 
favor of the "Wilmot," or even stand by the Administration 
policy on the slavery question, he is to be reckoned infected, 
put under the ban, and decapitated. These doctrines are not 
preached in a corner. They are openly bruited and announced 
from liigh official authorities. 

Here is a delightful spectacle to gaze upon ; it is certainly 
well calculated to make Whigs everywhere stop and see what is 
the full meaning and consequence of the passage of this bill of 
abominations. The truth is, the whole scheme of the Omnibus 
bill is a broad trap to catch the Whig party and the Adminis- 
tration, and it is one of the wonders of the times that the old 
champion and leaders of the Whigs should be dashing brilliantly 
ahead and carrying all they can with them into it. They 
avow their independence of party, however, and perhaps think 
that in what they are doing to give an overwhelming triumph to 
the Southern wing of the Opposition party, and to produce dis- 
comfiture in the Administration ranks, they may subserve a laud- 
able purpose. If this be so, it is a fire from a masked battery 
that it is high time to expose. 

But let us look a little closer, and see in what the passage of 
this Omnibus bill is to result. In the first place, it is to 
strengthen the Locofoco party in the South (as we have said) 
by the representations that will be made that the Omnibus plan 



1850] EFFECTS OF ITS PASSAGE. 45 

was the antagonist plan to the President's, and that it was carried 
bj Northern Opposition votes in defiance of the Whigs. In the 
next place, it will result in the weakening of the Whigs in the 
North, who will everywhere feel that its passage is a surrender 
of all they have been contending for on the question of slavery 
in the Territories, and a betrayal of their principles by those in 
whom they have placed the strongest confidence. In the third 
place, it will be the finishing blow to the unity of the Whig 
party in Congress, already in a state of ' ' loose aggregation. ' ' 
And again, it will be the signal for the renewal of the war in the 
North on the Wilmot Proviso. If territorial governments for 
New Mexico and Utah be established, and slavery is not inter- 
dicted therein, the next great effort will be to elect a Congress 
that will pass a supplementary bill, and supply the omission. 

These are the plain and manifest consequences to flow from 
the passage of this bill. Most of the considerations apply with 
great force in a party point of view, and call upon the Whigs to 
stand together and resist its passage with indomitable resolution. 
Let them plant themselves determinedly upon the President's 
policy. If Southern Whigs have broken away from the Admin- 
istration plan, it is because there has been defection in high 
places, and they thought to do better by following a distinguished 
lead. I believe there are those who already see the error of this 
movement, and who will yet return and stand with the main 
body of the Whigs upon the Administration platform. I believe 
they will make a fatal mistake if they do not. But for Northern 
Whigs to fail to rally around the President's plan, will be, in my 
humble apprehension, little short of fatuity. 

But one would think there must be reasons for the passage of 
the Omnibus bill of the most stringent and convincing character, 
or we should not see such combinations to effect its passage as 
we do see. What are they ? And why especially should it be 
taken upon the shoulders of Northern men ? Where is the 
necessity of the case in any aspect ? The Omnibus bill is the 
child of consternation and alarm. It was begotten of fear amid 
childish apprehensions of a dissolution of the Union. But the 
dissolution bubble has burst, and all the spray even has evapo- 
rated. What, then, is to be feared ? Is it the thunders of the 
Nashville Convention ? Alas, this projected assembly is already an 



46 it WILL NOT STOP AGITATION. [April 

abortion. The ideas of equilibriums and secessions are repudi- 
ated in quarters where repudiation is not unfashionable. They 
sleep the sleep of death in the grave of Mr. Calhoun. From 
that sleep no ghost shall come to make us quake. Of all the 
fierce array of bloody portents, nothing remains to shake the 
nerves of even the most timid but the threat to call the yeas and 
nays and thereby to obstruct legislation. And for this — to 
avoid so terrible an alternative as vexatious calls of the yeas and 
nays — the recommendations of the Administration on a great 
question of national and party policy are to be treated with con- 
tempt, the Whig party of the North is to be undermined and 
perhaps crumbled to powder, its Southern wing is to be left to 
founder on a cross sea raised by the settlement itself, and the 
party in Congress to be rendered more segregated than ever ; 
while the public mind is to receive a shock which will operate 
like a fresh blast of the bugle to a bivouacking army, arousing 
the North to stand ready for a new conflict on the Proviso. 

The leading reason, however, in favor of the passage, is, that 
it is to be a settlement of the slavery question. It is not worth 
while to be impatient of political agitation. The ocean never 
ceases to roll. The tempestuous sea of Oj>inion in a free coun- 
tree will never cease to surge. Passing the Omnibus bill with 
V the idea that it settles any thing touching the agitation of slavery 
in the Territories is a vain supposition. Quite the contrary. 
We see that it will be the signal for a renewal of the war on 
the Proviso, now ahnost closed, and which the President's plan, 
if allowed to operate, would wholly end. And thus it will pro- 
duce no settlement or abatement of the slavery agitation. 

Let the Omnibus bill be resisted, then, to the utmost and to 
the last ; arrest it in the House, and the President's policy must 
supervene and triumph. This will give quiet to the country. 
And it is the only policy that can. For it is the only policy that 
defers the settlement of the question to the power whose authority 
cannot be questioned, or whose decisions cannot be reversed, 
the only tribunal from which there can be no appeal — the people 
of the Territories themselves. 

One word more and I have done. The Omnibus bill is the 
great scheme to give triumph not only to the Locofoco party, 
but to that aristocratic, perverse, slavery -loving, intolerant, bitter, 



1850] COMMENTS BY MR. GREELEY. 47 

uncompromising portion of it that finds its head in the South 
and its tail only in the North — the party of which Foote is captain 
and Dickinson is lieutenant. The dynasty which is to float into 
power on the rising tide of the Omnibus bill is to be built up of 
the rotten timbers and worm-eaten planks of the condemned 
hulk of slavery Democracy. And the officers of the craft are 
to be taken from among the noisiest, most profligate, and pirati- 
cal of the old crew on board at the time of the condemnation. 
If we must have Locofocoism to rule over us, give us the 
geuine and not the spurious ; let us have it in its best form, not 
its worst. I protest earnestly that no Whig should so stultify 
himself as to lend a hand to this scheme, fatal alike to his party 
and to the Administration of his choice, and full of perils to the 
cause of Liberty and Humanity. J. S. P. 



THE COMPROMISE QUESTION. 
[Comments by Mr. Greeley in the Tribune.] 

The letter of a new and able Washington correspondent (J. 
S. P.) on the state and aspects of the California and Territorial 
questions before Congress will naturally attract attention. We 
have concluded not to say more on this subject until we can see 
further, yet this letter suggests : 

1. We have no evidence as yet that the Senate's Committee 
of Thirteen will report several important propositions respecting 
California, New Mexico, catching runaway slaves, the slave- 
trade in the District, etc. , in one and the same ' ' Omnibus bill. ' ' 
Sach a report appears to us to suggest legislation of very ques- 
tionable propriety, and we will not assume that the committee 
contemplate that course. It will be time enough to believe it 
when we see it. There seems to be a lack of motive for so doing, 
since motions to dissolve the bill into its component parts (by 
motions to strike out this and then that section) will of course be 
made, and cannot be dodged. We yet indulge the hope, there- 
fore, that the committee, even though agreeing that this shall be 
done in consideration of that, will report on the various subjects 
submitted to them in distinct bills. 



48 LETTER FROM HORACE GREELEY. [April 

2. J. S. P. seems mainly intent on proving that Northern 
Whigs ought not to sustain the proposed compromise. As barely 
one of them (Mr. Webster) has indicated a purpose of so doing — 
and he by no means a iixed and steady purpose — our corre- 
spondent seems to be calling rather the righteous than sinners to 
repentance. 

3. As to the terms of the proposed compromise, nothing is 
yet absolutely known, and it seems idle to speculate when the de- 
velopment must be near. It will not be easy to strike out a basis 
of settlement which Mr. Clay and Mr. Butler, of South Carolina, 
will both vote for, even assuming that the Northern compro- 
misers will vote for any thing. It is easy to agree that a compro- 
mise shall be attempted — not so easy to agree what its condition 
shall be. 

4. As to party loss or gain, it ought not to be of much ac- 
count in such a case. As a general rule, the party which thinks 
least of it will come out the best. Our resistance to the compro- 
mise is based on totally different considerations from those made 
most prominent by J. S. P. But let all views be expressed and 
considered. 



[From Horace Greeley.] 

New York, April 27, 1850. 

Friend Pike : Thank you for yours of yesterday, especially for 
your decision to draw on us for expenses. I prefer to have it that way. 
4 ' Business is business, ' ' and I want to hire you — that is, just as much 
of your time as you choose to sell me. The Tribune is able to pay, and 
I would rather pay you than owe you. 

I don't care to use your letters for telegraphic despatches, d la 
Express ; but you can often hear an inkling of the forthcoming Galphin 
report, the Compromise bill, the Committee on Old Bullion, etc., etc., 
which I will thank you to send by telegraph rather than the slower way. 
Bear in mind that expense is no object in the matter of early advices. 
I don't expect you to run round prying after such things, but they will 
fall in your way. Our Collector's confirmation or rejection is a matter 
of much interest here. Please indorse your letters conspicuously " Edi- 
tors' Mail." Yours, Horace Greeley. 

J. S. Pike, Esq. 



1850] LETTERS FROM MR. GREELEY. -±9 

[From Horace Greeley.] 

New York, April 28, 1850. 

Friend Pike : I have your first letter, and shall put it through, leads 
and all, though I am crowded for to-morrow. I only insist on one 
modification, that of not calling the Locofocos Democrats. First, 
hecause they are not ; next, because they live on that name, and make / 
more votes out of it than out of all the wisdom, talent, and patriotism 
they ever displayed ; and lastly, because it deceives and misleads many 
of the ignorant and simple with regard to our character and the real 
questions which divide us. I pray you call me a sheep- thief if you have 
occasion, but don't call Foote, Dickinson & Co. " the Democratic 
party." If you do, they may have a roast baby for breakfast every 
morning, with missionary steaks for dinner, and yet rule the country for- 
ever. 

I shall suggest some demurrage to your points, but never mind. 
Send along more of each. But let us know sometimes what Congress, the 
Cabinet, etc., are about to do, as well as what they ought to do. 

Yours, Horace Greeley. 

J. S. Pike, Esq. 



[From Horace Greeley.] 

New York, May 1, 1850. 

Dear Sir : There are serious objections to murder ; some people 
are so fastidious as to object to burglary and arson, and my impression 
is that rape and highway robbery, however pleasant in the concrete, are 
not in the abstract strictly justifiable. I would not be positive on these 
points, knowing how widely opinions differ on almost every phase of 
human conduct ; but when you come to writing on both sides of a half 
sheet of paper, intended as copy in a daily newspaper office, there can 
be no mistake as to the atrocity of a crime whereat outraged human 
nature stands aghast with horror. I pray you think of this evermore, 
and write only on one side. Also, indorse your letters " Editor's 
Mail," for fear they should somehow lie over at Washington or Balti- 
more till the morning mail, and so miss us by arriving here at midnight 
and remaining undistributed. These are small matters, but their conse- 
quence to us is not small. 

Can't you guess out for us somebody who can fish out executive 
session and committee secrets like Harriman, Harvey, and Kingman ? If 
you can, set him to telegraphing. Everybody, from Mother Eve's time 
down, has been especially anxious to know what ought not to be known, 



50 DUTY OF THE WHIG PARTY. [May 

and we must get some of it into the Tribune or be voted dull, indolent, 
and behind the times. We have had it, but just now our channels of 
transmission are choked up. 

Yours, Horace Greeley. 

J. S. Pike, Esq. 



[From Horace Greeley.] 

New t York, May 2, 1850. 

Friend Pike : I beg you not to be diffident. I know how common 
the fault is among Washington writers, and how hard to be overcome, 
but I beseech you, as Mrs. Chick would say, " to make an effort." You 
don't know what may come of it. 

Mr. Snow of ours will hand you this letter. He goes on to discover, 
with your help, that genius of an " inventive turn of mind," who 
knows just what mansion great men retire to when they don't retire at 
all. Good boy, that — we must hire his imagination. 

I like your letters, and if you won't call Foote and Butler " Demo- 
crats" in such sense as to imply that I am something else, I don't think 
I shall ever take liberties with your letters, except it may be the liberty 
of dissenting from some of their positions. 

Yours, Horace Greeley. 

J. S. Pike, Esq. 



DUTY OF THE WHIG PARTY. 
[From the New York Tribune.] 

"Washington, Thursday, May 2. 
There are very excellent reasons, in our judgment, why the 
party considerations against the passage of the Omnibus bill 
should be presented at this particular juncture. The general 
ground of opposition — namely, the obligation resting upon every 
man opposed to slavery to do all in his power to prevent the pos- 
sibility of its extension over territory now free — has been so thor- 
oughly ploughed and harrowed that it seems superfluous to go 
over it again and again. The fact is that this ground of oppo- 
sition has been the only one discussed during the last five months 
of agitation. In the general considerations supporting what may 
be termed the humane aspect of the case we cordially concur, 
and the sentiments we have recently advanced of a party charac- 



1S50] NECESSITY OF A PARTY POLICY. 51 

ter, are but auxiliary to those wider and deeper sentiments of a 
more general nature, that prompt us to oppose the passage of the 
Omnibus bill. It is thus we support General Taylor's plan of 
settlement of the territorial and slavery questions, for a double 
reason. In the first place, because it is the surest plan to prevent 
slavery from going into the new Territories, and secondly, be- 
cause it is the best plan to preserve the unity and integrity of the 
Whig party. We have an Administration, we have a party, and 
we ought to have a party policy on the leading questions of the 
day, and that policy ought to be adhered to. 

Undoubtedly it would be a most delightful condition of affairs 
if there were no such vulgar things as parties, party views, party 
influences, and party proprieties. It would be delightful if we 
could see in practical operation the fine theories that we often 
hear set forth in eloquent terms in Congress. Such, for ex- 
ample, as that every individual representative is a distinct and 
independent power in this government, acting upon his sole 
personal responsibility, amenable only to his conscience, and 
bound by no other obligations than his oath to support the Con- 
stitution ; that upon every subject presented for his considera- 
tion, he should act and does act with the most lofty independence 
and immaculate purposes, regardless of every supposable possible 
influence of a personal and party nature ; that the President is a 
power only known through the Constitution, and his official acts 
under it ; that the idea of conference or suggestion between the 
executive and legislative branches of the government, except 
that of the most formal and precise and constitutional character, 
is not to be entertained for an instant. All this, and more of 
the same sort, that we not unfrequently hear, uttered with great 
solemnity on the floor of Congress, is very fine, no doubt. But 
the homely fact is, that we are living in no such Utopian state. 
Parties do exist, and men are governed by party considerations. 
Subordinated they may be, and often are, to more elevated and 
wider views of things ; but, nevertheless, they are always strin- 
gent, and often controlling in matters upon which the representa- 
tive is called to act. We see no impropriety, therefore, in pre- 
senting the party aspect of the territorial question clearly and 
decisively in the present juncture. We go for a full and frank 
exposition of all the relations of the subject. It may have its 



/ 



J 



52 DEFECTION OF OLD WHIG LEADERS. [May 

disadvantages — that cannot be helped. In these days of free 
conference and free discussion, however, private and public, we 
do not believe that any thing is to be accomplished on the pre- 
sumption of ignorance of party objects and party motives. 
Neither is any thing to be gained by the holy pretension that men 
should act wholly independently of them. This is a common- 
sense world and a common-sense age. And for old experienced 
statesmen and politicians to try to enforce this pretension upon 
apprentices in legislation, or tyros in politics, is no better than the 
effort of preachers who 

" Show others the steep and thorny way to heaven, 
While they the primrose path of dalliance tread." 

Why, there are the most emphatic reasons for calling upon 
the Whig party to rally around its chosen leader on the great 
subject agitating the country. The party should preserve its 
unity. Its members should stand and go together. It should 
act as a power in the controversy. It should plant itself 
somewhere in a distinct and prominent position. This is 
essential to the preservation of its own individuality, its own 
dignity and safety, and the dignity and safety of the Ad- 
ministration. Neither is this any new thing for the Whig party. 
It is celebrated for taking positions and creating issues. It is 
celebrated for the distinctness with which they have in times j>ast 
been presented, and the energy and ability with which they have 
been urged. Of their character, or the character of many of 
them, especially those of the last nine or ten years, we are not 
called to speak. To refer to them would only be to refresh the 
memory of unpleasant divisions and signal defeats, and, many of 
us would say, signal errors. How long is it since the great 
Northern champion of the Whig party, himself now bolting from 
its ranks, and leaving its main division to worry along as it best 
may, without his presence and without his counsels, uttered this 
remarkable declaration : " For myself, in the dark and troubled 
night that is upon us, I see no star above the horizon promising 
light to guide us, but the star of the great united Whig party ?" 
We see how brief a period has elapsed since this eminent citizen, 
for whose great powers we entertain the highest admiration, and 
upon whose present position we look with no other feelings but 



1850] THE NORTH SHOULD SUPPORT GEN. TAYLOR. 53 

those of profound regret, was clear in his apprehensions that certain 
great national duties and obligations devolved upon the Whig 
party as a distinctive body. And yet now, instead of using his 
great abilities to hold that party together, and to give unity and 
force to its action, he wields the two-edged sword of his logic and 
his eloquence to sever the withes that unite and bind it together. 

But we need not go on longer in this strain. We would have 
our remarks point directly to this end : 

1st. That the North should support General Taylor's policy, 
because it is the best policy to prevent the spread of slavery into 
the new Territories, but mainly, 

2d. That the Whig party should support it, because it is the 
wisest, fairest, most unobjectionable and forbearing, and least 
irritating of any that can be presented ; and because it is the 
policy of a Whig administration, presented for the adoption of 
the Whig party. 

Pardon us a suggestion. Suppose Mr. Clay were in the presiden- 
tial chair, and he, acting in the plenitude of his influence and author- 
ity as a great party leader, as well as the official head of a Whig ad- 
ministration, should have come down to Congress with the iden- 
tical proposition that General Taylor offers, to compose the coun- 
try, what whisper of opposition to it would have been heard in 
any quarter ? Or, if perchance a dissenting voice were feebly 
uttered amid the universal acclamation of concurrence, we should 
then have witnessed what fate would be that man's who should 
persist in contumacious resistance to the policy of the Adminis- 
tration ? The answer promptly rises to every man's lips. No 
one conjectures in any spirit of uncertainty. He would be con- 
demned for mutiny and triced to the yard-arm so soon as the 
crew could be piped to quarters to witness the ceremony. But 
enough of this. J. S. P. 



TEXAS READY TO TRADE. 
[Prom the New York Tribune.] 

Washington, Sunday, May 5. 
It is no argument at all in favor of the passage of the Omni- 
bus bill that New Mexico is in danger of being swallowed up by 
Texas, and must be released. Texas is ready, willing, and anxious 



54 THE OMNIBUS BILL MUST BE DEFEATED. [May 

to sell out lier claim any day. Give her money and she will re- 
lax her grasp at once. Ten millions poured over the chains that 
bind New Mexico will dissolve them 

" Like a waxen image 'gainst the Are." 

It needs no Omnibus bill to make this bargain. Indeed, it is 
quite evident that a better trade with Texas can be made by driv- 
ing it independently of every other subject and consideration, 
than by mixing it up with any thing else. Now, Texas can say, 
you must give us fifteen millions, or twelve millions, or any 
other number of millions for our claim, or we will vote against 
the whole Omnibus bill and defeat that. Their votes for the 
Omnibus bill are the lever they use to extort a larger sum of 
money than they can any other way possibly obtain. Let it be 
remembered that Texas desires to sell out, and the fallacy of the 
notion that the failure of the Omnibus bill consigns New Mexico 
to the slavery dominion of Texas is rendered perfectly apparent 
and transparent. J. S. P. 

THE OMNIBUS BILL AND THE WHIG PARTY. 
[From the Tribune.'] 

Washington, Saturday, May 4. 
The party necessities of sustaining the Administration policy 
on the slavery and territorial questions we have before urged 
here and elsewhere. They involve the necessity of defeating 
the Omnibus bill. And we beg to call the attention of Southern 
Whigs to the position the party will be placed in unless the Om- 
nibus bill is defeated. Pass it, and the whole Northern Whig 
force is compelled to plant itself upon the ground of enforcing 
the Proviso upon the territorial governments that may be estab- 
lished by it. The idea of its passage quieting, settling, the 
slavery controversy, is the merest chimera. It will open a new 
contest upon the Proviso at once. And every Northern man, 
and especially every Northern Whig, who expects to be elected 
to Congress will be required to declare himself in favor of pass- 
ing a supplementary section asserting the Proviso over the Ter- 
ritories. The "Wihnot," instead of being killed, will be re- 
juvenated ; new vigor and new life will be infused into it by 
the passage of this Omnibus bill. The mischief of this we say is 



1850] THE DUTY OF SOUTHERN WHIGS. 55 

manifest. The Whigs of the North will be forced upon a position 
that Southern Whigs will be compelled to repudiate ; that they 
do now repudiate. The Whig party will thus be clove asunder 
on a vital question. And no other consequence can come of it 
but defeat throughout the entire South. Does not everybody 
see this ? It is what becomes inevitable after the passage of the 
Omnibus bill. Southern Whigs owe it to the party, to them- 
selves, to the Administration, to prevent any thing of the sort. 
It is in their power to prevent it. They have only to occupy the 
truly national position of the President to steer clear of this 
ruinous result. Defeat the passage of the Omnibus bill, and 
stand by the President's policy, and the Whig party becomes a 
national party, standing on a sound platform on the territorial 
question before the country, and one which can be defended 
North and South. 

It may require some boldness in Southern Whigs, at the out- 
set, to assume this position. But surely not much. We are not 
disposed, and it is unnecessary, to run out this argument in its 
ramifications ; but any intelligent Whig who will reflect upon 
the subject must see the truth of what we allege, as well as what 
the position of things must be in the South in the Locofoco 
ranks on the defeat of the Omnibus bill, and the embarrassments 
to their Northern Locofoco allies that will grow therefrom. It 
is enough that we draw attention to the subject. 

We repeat, that the passage of the Omnibus bill will narrow 
the platform of the Whig party to such a degree on the slavery 
and territorial questions that both Northern and Southern 
Whigs cannot stand upon it. The result will be the same kind 
of divisions and embarrassments that now hinder the harmonious 
working of the party in Congress, that lost us the Speaker, and 
has become fruitful of other mischiefs palpable and notorious. 
With one end of the party actively urging the Wilmot Proviso, 
and the other actively opposing it, what can be expected but col- 
lision and defeat ? There can be no fusion of the party, no con- 
cordant and harmonious action, so long as it is beset from within 
and without by the ' ' Wilmot. ' ' And there is only one way to 
be rid of it. And this is by defeating the Omnibus bill, and col- 
lecting the party together upon the President's policy. 

J. S. P. 



56 COMMENTS BY MR. ORE E LET. [May 

[Comments by Mr. Greeley.] 

" Oh," says our correspondent J. S. P., " this is no argu- 
ment for the passage of the grand compromise now brewing. ' ' 
Certainly not, if the independence and safety of New Mexico can be 
secured in some better way — perhaps not at all — we only cite it as an 
argument for doing something ; but we see that it will inevitably 
have weight with many in favor of doing any thing that will res- 
cue New Mexico from her peril if the alternative presented is 
doing nothing. But " Texas is ready, willing, and anxious to 
sell out her claim any day," for money enough. Very likely ; 
but it is not a possibility nor even a feasibility of some other 
mode of settlement that is required, but the settlement itself. 
It does not suffice that " a better trade can be made" — the thing 
is to have it made. Texas is no more placable now than she was 
before she sent her commissioner into New Mexico to reduce it 
to her sway. If she wants to drive a bargain on her atrocious 
claim, she will be only the more eager to back it by some show of 
possession on her own part and submission on that of the New 
Mexicans. Fully appreciating the difference in facility between 
keeping slavery out of a thinly peopled region and rooting it out, 
we insist that effectual means shall now be employed to place the 
independence of New Mexico beyond contingency. There is no 
question now pending more urgent than this. 

As to all that our correspondent urges with respect to the par- 
tisan aspects and expediency of the case, we do not know that we 
take sufficient interest in it to understand it very well, and shall 
offer no comment. Enough that party interests and party tri- 
umphs have little weight in the scale where freedom or slavery 
for an embryo empire are trembling. 



THE COMPROMISE EXPLODED. 

[From the Neio York Tribune.} 

Washington, Thursday Evening, May 8. 
The Omnibus report and project are blown sky high ! Mr. 
Clay to-day made his report from the grand Committee of Thir- 
teen, of which you will receive the substance from another corre- 
spondent. Immediately Messrs. Mason, Downs, Clemens, Yulee, 



1850] THE COMPROMISE EXPLODED. 57 

Turney, and Borland (Southern Locos) and Mr. Berrien (Southern 
Whig) came out dead against the proposed compromise ! It is 
understood that there are four or five other Southern Senators 
who will go with them. This would seem to settle the fate of 
the measure, which was expected to pass the Senate with a rush. 

Mr. Clay made an energetic and impassioned speech, in reply 
to what he termed the unkind and premature assaults on the 
report and recommendations of the committee, and declared his 
determination to stand by them to the last extremity. 

The debate was continued to a late hour. Generals Cass and 
Houston, with Messrs. Mangum, Foote, and Dickinson sustained 
the report and its recommendations. 

The denouement creates a profound sensation. It points to 
very important results. J. S. P. 



THE UNADJOURNED QUESTIONS. 
[Comment9 by the New York Tribune.] 

If the compromise project has broken down, as now appears 
probable, by reason of the intrinsic difficulties of the case, we 
trust there will be no further effective resistance to the admission 
of California. She ought to be fully in the Union before the 
close of next week. Why shall she not ? Where are her 
friends ? 

And then for New Mexico ! Messrs. J. S. P., and other 
friends of the President's plan, you have assured us that New 
Mexico could just as well be rescued from the grasp of Texas 
without the compromise as by it. Now let us see it done ! We 
don't want to hear how it might be done, but that it is done. 
" Masterly inactivity" will not answer now, since Texas is driv- 
ing her stakes in New Mexico, with the Federal authorities and 
troops looking on as neutrals. Ho, friends of freedom in Con- 
gress ! do not, while contending for abstractions, permit slavery 
to clutch New Mexico ! Give her peace, liberty, and security 
decisively and forever ! 



58 MR. CLAY AND MR. BENTON. [May 

MR. CLAY DISCOMFITED. 

[From the New York Tribune.'] 

Washington, Thursday, May 9. 

Little has been talked of or thought of since yesterday but 
the untimely and unexpected defeat of the Omnibus bill. It 
was pierced with a thousand shafts on its entrance into the Sen- 
ate. The surcharged Southern clouds burst upon its devoted 
head and struck it dead with their lightning while it was in its 
swaddling-clothes. Never was such a ruthless and fatal attack 
made upon any little monster before. In undertaking to run the 
gauntlet of its destiny it did not make the first step. The cruel 
spears transfixed it at the start. It has perished in its infancy ; 
it has been strangled before it was fairly out of the nurse's arms. 
It has been mutilated, cut up, totally destroyed. 

I felt for Mr. Clay. He appeared like a man upon some 
high and lone eminence resisting the storms of Fate that beat 
fiercely about his head. Amid the assaults that came pouring 
thick and resistless from all quarters upon his bantling, his pres- 
ence and his voice rose towering and fearful. He hurled back 
the shafts of his adversaries. Fearless and intrepid, he dared 
them to an equal combat. He frowned defiance, and his tones 
rolled in thunders over all their heads. Rolla-like, he seemed to 
seize his offspring with his good right arm, and, holding it high 
above his head, to say, 

" Who seeks this child's life, dies upon the spot." 

In the midst of the grand melee, which had been confined to 
those who had voted for the creation of the Compromise Com- 
mittee, for the purpose, as was alleged at the time, of " harmo- 
nizing" the jarring elements in this contest ; Mr. Benton, who 
sat in his seat seeming to enjoy the uproar, turned his head to a 
friend in the neighborhood and profanely exclaimed, " This is a 
h — of a harmony !" It is also stated that he said the eclaircisse- 
ment had saved him two days' speaking. Considering how much 
was claimed for this committee, how confidently it has been as- 
serted that its labors would accomplish the miracle of pleasing 
everybody, how its recommendations would prove to be a law to 
Congress, how its measures would go through the Senate, two to 
one ; how all who resisted these measures and recommendations 



1850] TEXAS WILLING TO SELL OUT. 59 

would be overwhelmed by public opinion and scouted from pub- 
lic life as fanatics and traitors — in view of all this, and of the 
prompt and fatal discomfiture that has met its pretensions and its 
labors at the outset, we can only liken the whole proceedings to a 
game of brag, in which the player has impudently, loudly, and 
desperately staked every thing upon a broken hand, and instead 
of driving his adversary from the field, has exposed, stripped, and 
ruined himself. 

The whole Omnibus scheme being thus in threads and tat- 
ters, past hope of mending or repair, there is nothing left but 
to set the sail of the President's policy, and under that to weather 
the gale. J. S. P. 



FERMENTATION ON THE TEXAS QUESTION. 
[From the New York Tribune.] 

"Washington, Saturday, May 11. 

"We will be patient, Mr. Greeley. Things are in a ferment. 
No wise man is precipitate in a bargain. But very small skill in 
diplomacy is necessary to arrange this matter of the boundary of 
New Mexico with Texas. Pierced as the friends of the Omni- 
bus bill are at this present moment with many sorrows, we ex- 
pect them to be coy and perhaps sullen on this topic just now ; 
Texas herself, through her representatives, may flout the idea of 
any immediate settlement. This is the worst view of the case. 
We doubt if even this phase, however, will turn up. But we 
know what will be their "sober second thought." We know 
what the people of Texas even now desire, and will continue to 
desire more and more fervently until the consummation of their 
hopes and expectations. 

The almighty dollar is an object with everybody. It is 
especially an object with Texas. Texas has a great deal of land 
and very little money. She would like to finger ten or a dozen 
million of Uncle Sam's six per cents, in the way of barter, for 
some of her acres, especially for those desmenes to which she has 
really no equitable title whatever. I do not speak at random when 
I say that Texas is ready, willing, and anxious to sell out her claim 
to New Mexico ; and, moreover, that her members here cannot 
sustain themselves at home unless they go for the trade. 



CO NO DANGER FROM THE BOUNDARY QUESTION. [May 

T3ut now, now, immediately, say you ? "Why so precipitate ? 
There are no hordes of Texans with a retinue of slaves overruning 
or threatening to invade New Mexico. New Mexico is a wide 
wilderness of country, naturally unadapted to slave labor ; and 
there is very little emigration thither, more particularly of slaves. 
With this fact staring us in the face, we see no pressing necessity 
urging to sudden and hasty action, while we feel a confident as- 
surance that Texas only waits our motion to close a bargain for 
the unconditional transfer of all her right, title, and interest to 
the whole country north of 32° and west of 100°. 

"We make no question of Congress passing a relief bill for New 
Mexico whenever the preliminaries with Texas are settled. The 
friends of the compromise scheme profess to be in favor of it, 
and the Northern Wilmot Proviso men will surely lend their aid 
to succor such a bill in its extremity. 

We know there will be opposition to it, and whence it will 
come. The extreme Southern men will oppose the relinquish- 
ment by Texas of any part of New Mexico. There will be no 
other, and this, resting as it does upon the most ultra notions in 
respect to slavery, and extreme, if not revolutionary sentiments, 
will be unavailing. We know that it was among the day dreams 
of Mr. Calhoun, in view of his dim scheme of secession, that 
the conflict was to arise out of this Texan boundary question ; 
and the headless remains of his party no doubt desire to keep the 
question open for possible ulterior revolutionary purposes. But 
as this party are doomed to the most signal discomfiture in all 
their plans, so will they be in this. The number of members of 
Congress who will be in favor of keeping the Texas boundary 
question open, whether for purposes of mischief or other objects, 
must inevitably be, in the end, very small. This we deem to be 
a pertinent and reasonable view of the whole matter. Time will 
determine its correctness. J. S. P. 



California's demand — me. clay. 

[Correspondence of the New York Tribune.] 

Washington, Tuesday, May 14. 
Looking at things here in a practical point of view, there 
would really seem to be nothing left for Congress to do but to take 



1850] ADMIT CALIFORNIA AND PAY TEXAS. 61 

up the California bill and pass it. That State ought to be ad- 
mitted. She is suffering great injury and great injustice that she 
is not. The attempt to unite the question of her admission with 
other and foreign subjects having signally failed, it now ought 
to be promptly abandoned. Mr. Clay owes this sacrifice on his 
part to his own professions of a desire for concord, harmony, and 
union. As it is plain that the great questions embodied in the 
compromise scheme cannot be put through Congress in the lump, 
let each now be considered separately. This is the true way at 
all times. We ought not to undertake to make legislative chow- 
ders. Common sense forbids it. Parliamentary law forbids it. 
Conscience and fair dealing forbid it. " One thing at a time," is 
an old, familiar, and good maxim. Let Congress act upon it. 
Let California, then, be admitted in the first place, and without 
delay. This done, let the boundaries of Texas and New Mexico 
be established. If money must be paid to Texas, let it be appro- 
priated. There is no serious difficulty in the way of a bargain. 
Texas is not short-sighted, and we do not believe, from what we 
know of her representatives in both branches, that she will be 
obstinate. Few States are represented by abler or cooler men. 

Let us see who will resist these two measures. Every con- 
sideration which can be supposed to influence fair and honorable 
legislators calls for their adoption. Every reasonable man in 
the country, of whatever shade of opinion, must see that it is the 
duty of Congress to admit California, and it is its duty to pre- 
vent a conflict between New Mexico and Texas in relation to 
their boundaries. These subjects press. They are the only ones 
that do. With them disposed of the way is clear. Other sub- 
jects may afterward come up and be considered as occasion de- 
mands. But there is no inherent distracting causes in the two 
subjects that now call for the action of Congress. They do not 
involve the Wilmot Proviso nor the subject of slavery at all. 
There need not and ought not to be any sectional question raised 
in regard to them. We may treat them, and yet steer clear en- 
tirely of Provisos, of fugitive-slave bills, of subdivisions of Slave 
States, and whatever else there is of an irritating, agitating, and 
inflaming nature in the Omnibus-load of combustibles trundled 
into the Senate by the Committee of Thirteen. 

Let Mr. Clay fling away his elaborate compound with which he 



62 LETTER FROM HORACE GREELEY. [May 

proposes to cure the country's disorders, and trust to Nature and 
a simple treatment. He seems to us like a great physician who 
has mistaken the disorder of his patient. He believes that active, 
urgent medicines are required, when really nothing is needed 
but quiet and rest. He mistakes in the common way of all doc- 
tors ; instead of seeing with how little the patient can do, he is 
for trying how much he will bear. And thus at this moment he 
appears to us to stand in melancholy mood over a disturbed and 
irritated country, which needs more to be let alone than any 
thing else, with an immense plaster of cantharides in his hands, 
that he insists upon applying by way of composing the patient to 
rest. Let Mr. Clay forbear to press a scheme which it is plain 
cannot prevail. He cannot carry his measures together ; let 
them be tried separately. One of his clear, clarion cries in favor 
of the immediate, separate admission of California, and the work 
would be done. Shall we not hear it ? J. S. P. 



[From Horace Greeley.] 

New York, May 1G, 1850. 

Dear P. : I presume I confiscated your dollar — Swartwouted with it 
— absorbed it. I will repent and refund at the desk. 

As to the editorship of the Republic, I beg to be excused. I 
shouldn't like to be called up to the big house after some cabinet flus- 
teration and told, " York, you're not wanted. " No, sir, I thank ye ! That 
wouldn't suit my amiable and modest disposition. It might tempt me 
to blaspheme, which I now studiously avoid. 

What the deuce is the meaning of this row the lot of you are kicking 
up about the President's plan and Clay's Omnibus I can't conceive. I 
read all your letters most earnestly, but can't make our what you mean. 
The two schemes are six of one and half a dozen t'other ; but if either is 
six and a half, I think it is Clay's ; for that takes care of New-Mexico, 
which t'other don't. I mistrust you are very factious and selfish, some 
of you. Yours, Horace Greeley. 

J. S. Pike, Esq. 



1850] MB. GREELEY AND THE OMNIBUS BILL. 63 

THE OMNIBUS VS. THE PRESIDENT'S PLAN. 
[From the New York Tribune.] 

Washington, Friday, May 17. 

This is amazing. Who shall say there is no difference be- 
tween the Omnibus and the President's plan ? or if there be any, 
that the advantage is with the Omnibus, because it takes care of 
New Mexico and the other plan don't. 

The boundary question we have disposed of. It can be set- 
tled on its own bottom. But a territorial government without 
the Proviso ! What comes of it ? First and foremost a great 
Northern row. Every man sent to Congress from the Free 
States will come down here under instructions to put on the 
Wilmot. Call you this settling the question ? The Wilmot will 
be put on, or it won't. If it is, the South will foam more than 
ever, and the political storm roar more loudly than ever. If 
it is not, the agitations of the North will be deeper, and their 
demands more exacting and intense than heretofore. Either 
way, besides an increase of agitation, this result follows : The 
Whig party is rent asunder. The South will go in one direction, v 
and the North in another. " You do not precisely understand or 
appreciate the party embarrassments or party damage of the 
case." This is odd. No man should see them more clearly. 
They are entirely apparent to far duller apprehensions, and they 
are vivid and substantive to the keen-sighted. But another 
thing, and a greater thing. Give New Mexico an undisturbed 
territorial government, without the Proviso, of ten years, or fif- 
teen years, and if slavery can possibly live in New Mexico, it 
will be smuggled in. Should we not avoid the possibilities of 
this long apprenticeship ? Let New Mexico establish her institu- \s 
tions now, while she is anti-slavery — not after ten years' tutelage 
of a territorial government, when she may be pro-slavery. 

' ' Factious and selfish, ' ' indeed ! Are not these reasons ? 
strong, valid, substantial, pressing, conclusive ? We do not 
want to sever and thus destroy the nationality of the Whig party S 
if it can be avoided. We do not wish to increase political agita- 
tion on the slavery question to no purpose whatever but to raise 
a storm to drown ourselves. We do not wish to increase the 
chances of New Mexico's becoming a Slave State, by doing 



G4 MR. CALHOUN'S DESIRE. [May 

what Mr. Calhoun so earnestly desired, giving " time to get in." 
This is what he wanted: "Time to get in." Does not the 
apprenticeship under a territorial government give it ? This is 
what we do not want. But is what we do want " factious and 
selfish?" What is it w T e go for? First, the immediate admis- 
sion of California. Second, the establishment of the boundary 
between New Mexico and Texas. If we choose to do more, 
there are three things that can be done. First, extend the Post- 
Office laws over New Mexico. Second, establish a district court 
Third, put in force your Indian Agency. With these simple 
regulations New Mexico will have all she needs. And the Presi- 
dent's plan is here perfected. It is simple, just, wise, benefi- 
cent, unexceptionable, tranquillizing, harmonizing to all sections. 
It will save the integrity and. nationality of the party. No rea- 
sonable man can deny it. Nothing in the world is wanting to its 
complete and triumphant success, and the consequent success of 
the party, now and hereafter, but the will of the Whigs in Con- 
gress to have it successful. Fear not. This we shall have in 
due time. The policy is bound to triumph as soon as the remains 
of the Omnibus can be shovelled off the track. The Administra- 
tion has hitherto been acting upon the notion that it is not worth 
while to shovel a path while the snow is falling. The clouds 
having broken, it is now likely something will be done. 

J. S. P. 



TERRITORIAL QUESTIONS AND DIVERS PLANS OF ADJUSTMENT. 
[Comments by the Tribune.] 

We have preferred to let the discussion in Congress of the 
questions connected with slavery and the Territories go on with- 
out much comment on our part, but that seems impossible. Our 
able Washington correspondent, J. S. P., insists not only on 
canvassing them with pointed reference to our own views, but 
his letter herewith given refers especially, if we understand its 
allusions, to a private letter we recently wrote him avowing that 
we could not perceive any such radical difference between the 
propositions severally known as the President's and Mr. Clay's- 
as would justify all the agitation and excitement which were 
manufactured or evinced in Washington with regard to them. 



1850] MR. GREELEY'S COMMENTS. 05 

We invite careful attention to what he has to offer on this sub- 
ject, and then to the following comments : 

In order to determine the relative merits of two rival propo- 
sitions we must first determine what is absolutely and entirely 
right ; and we understand J. S. P. to agree with us that the 
right course with regard to the pending questions would be to 

1. Admit California into the Union with her anti-slavery 
Constitution and her boundaries as she has defined them. 

2. Organize the remaining country acquired from Mexico 
into one or more Territories, securing them from any possible 
intrusion of slavery by the shield of the Wilmot Proviso. 

3. Declare and establish the boundaries of New Mexico in 
such manner as to shield her from the pretensions and encroach- 
ments of Texas without paying the latter any compensation for 
her preposterous claim. [If we give up to Texas and slavery 
all the country between the Nueces valley and the lower Rio 
Grande, to which she had neither title nor possession until the 
arms of the nation wrested it from Mexico, we give her all that 
she should have the face to claim, and more than she is justly 
entitled to.] 

Here, then, we have fully in view what ought to be done, ac- 
cording to our judgment, and we presume that of J. S. P. If 
we had the power to do as we liked, there need be no question 
as to the expediency of doing this or that other thing. Unhap- 
pily, however, it is abundantly notorious that we have no such 
power. General Cass, Mr. Dickinson, and even Mr. Webster, 
stand pledged not to vote for the Wilmot Proviso ; and with 
three such States as Massachusetts, New York, and Michigan 
divided and neutralized on this question, in a Senate composed 
in equal numbers of the representatives of Free and Slave States, 
we are sure to be beaten there. Southern senators who do not 
want slavery extended, and frankly say so, cannot be expected 
to vote for the Proviso of Freedom when Northern senators 
stigmatize it as irritating, unnecessary, and even unconstitutional. 
That would not prevent our voting for it whenever we had a 
chance, but it is too clear that it cannot be carried through the 
present Senate. 

The Senate will not do as we wish it would ; the House (we 
trust) will not do as our adversaries would have it. The two 



66 MR. GREELEY ON MR. CLAY'S PLAN. [May 

brandies confront and counterbalance eacli other, and thus the 
whole business is brought to a stand. In this dilemma the Pres- 
ident — a Southern man and slaveholder, but a fair and we be- 
lieve impartial Executive — comes forward and proposes a medium 
course, which is not all we wish, but is far more distasteful to 
our antagonists. " Let us," says he in substance, " admit Cali- 
fornia exactly as she is, and leave the Territories as they are to 
await the progress of events. As soon as they are ripe for it, 
we will admit them as States, with such constitutions as they 
shall see fit to form." 

We consider this, in the actual state of things, when it was 
submitted, a fair and just proposition. It ought to satisfy those 
who pretend to doubt it that the President is truly national in 
his views and purposes, and that he does not and never did per- 
vert the great power of his station to any sectional purpose, cer- 
tainly not to favor the extension of slavery. The earnest hos- 
tility of the notorious Propagandists to his plan is a high eulo- 
gium on it and on him. We honor and thank him for proposing 
it, and for his general bearing throughout the excitements and 
alarms of the session. 

Mr. Clay has brought forward another, more comprehensive, 
elaborate, less simple, but not radically hostile proposition. It 
agrees with General Taylor on the great question of the instant 
and unqualified admission of California into the Union with her 
chosen boundaries and her anti-slavery Constitution. It agrees 
with the President's also in the virtual negation of any express 
prohibition of slavery in the Territories. It differs from the 
President's in proposing to substitute a civil for the existing 
military rule in Mexico and the region stretching west of it to 
the boundary of California. It differs from the President's in 
proposing to shield New Mexico evermore from the pretensions 
and the efforts of Texas to subjugate her people and absorb the 
better portion of her Territory, while it proposes to pay Texas 

millions of dollars in consideration of the surrender of her 

pretensions to that Territory. And it further proposes to abolish 
and prohibit the slave-trade in the District of Columbia in con- 
sideration of an act giving to the South more effectual provi- 
sions for the recovery of slaves who have escaped or may escape 
into the Free States, as stipulated in the Federal Constitution. 



1850] DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MR. CLAY AND TEE PRES'T. 67 

Mr. Clay's plan is therefore in substantial accordance with 
the President's on some of the most important points ; on some 
others the contrary. We decidedly prefer to see California sail 
into the Union " solitary and alone," asking no favors and defy- 
ing all enemies, rather than that she should be used to tow in or 
be towed in by any thing else. This would induce us to vote 
steadily to separate her admission from every other question, 
had we a vote to give on the subject. But the question of her 
admission in this way or another is one of form rather than sub- 
stance, save as the propositions connected with her admission may 
be essentially objectionable. But voting against her admission 
because we could not shape the bill as we wished it, would be 
•quite another thing. So we should vote to clap on the Proviso 
to any bill organizing the Territories ; but if defeated on that, it 
does not follow that we should thenceforth oppose any organiza- 
tion of the Territories. That must depend upon the probability 
of doing more good than evil, securing advantage or incurring 
hazard for the cause of freedom by such organization. Questions 
■of practicability and of detail cannot always be settled off-hand 
in a chimney-corner five hundred miles from the Capitol, and 
they who denounce their representatives in Congress for doing 
what good they can, after vainly trying to do more, will be very 
apt to do them injustice. 

We cannot doubt that the long-threatened but at last realized 
irruption of the Texan officials into New Mexico and the immi- 
nent peril thus created of subjugation or civil war, has materially 
changed the aspects of the general question, and rendered a 
prompt and thorough settlement of the question of boundary es- 
sential. We are not satisfied with nods, nor winks, nor whis- 
pered assurances that the matter shall be made right, because we 
have had these assurances for some time, yet we see clearly that 
it isn't right. That fatal order from the War Department to 
Colonel Munroenot to interfere in any collision between the New 
Mexicans and the Texan pretenders who may appear among 
them is all wrong, and we haven't yet seen its official reversal. 
We know well that Colonel Munroe had no different orders up 
to our last advices when Major Neighbors was in New Mexico 
as the Commissioner of Texas, coaxing, flattering, and bullying 
the people to submit to her jurisdiction, and Colonel Munroe 



68 MR. GREELEY CONTINUES. [Mat 

was not only looking quietly on, but he was j:>roclaiming that, 
even in case of an appeal to arms, he was under instructions not. 
to interfere. A pretty sort of government that, and especially 
of military government ! And now we are informed that the 
line of New Mexico must strike east from the Rio Grande at a 
point nearly twenty miles above El Paso, because there is a slave- 
holding settlement almost as high up ! Thus while we are light- 
ing about this or that mode of keeping them out, and receiving 
the most positive assurances that they shall be kept out, Texas 
and slavery are already working into New Mexico under that 
very system of non-action, do you mind ? that is commended to us 
as so much more preferable to Mr. Clay's plan. We don't see it. 

" O," says J. S. P., "we can buy off the claim of Texas 
after the Omnibus bill shall have been defeated, and we will." 
Such assurances are easily given, but we would rather have some old 
ones redeemed before we put much faith in new ones. At all 
events, this buying off, of which the necessity is thus admitted, is 
an interpolation on the President's plan ; and if J. S. P. may 
interpolate, why not Mr. Clay ? 

' ' But the passage of the Omnibus will not settle the sla- 
very agitation." You never said a truer thing than that ! 
Neither Mr. Clay's, the President's, nor any other plan can stop 
the slavery agitation so long as slavery shall not merely exist but 
insist on extending its dominion. With Cuban invasions, Hay- 
tien conquests, and New-Mexican subjugations imminent, he 
must be green indeed who expects any abatement even of the sla- 
very excitement. On the contrary, it is morally certain to swell 
and spread till it overrides and overrules every thing else. If 
the South were as wise now as were its great statesmen in 1787, 
when they joined heartily in excluding slavery forever from 
the territory north-west of the Ohio, there might be a lull in 
the tempest ; but the Ruler of Nations would seem to have other 
designs, and they will be accomplished. This slave-catching bill 
now pressed upon Congress will make a hundred Abolitionists 
of tener than it catches one slave. But is there any use in throw- 
ing up rockets to warn the wilfully blind ? 

" But the Omnibus can't pass," avers J. S. P. We suspect 
he is right in this. If Messrs. Clemens, Yulee, Mason, Sebas- 
tian, etc., see fit to vote against it, it is dead of course. Is it 



1850] MR. GREELEY CONCLUDES. 69 

best, then, that we, who want to see California admitted as 
promptly and decisively as possible, should make an onslaught 
upon it in such manner as will tend to sour its friends against 
us, against our time of need ? Shall we needlessly quarrel with 
our own friends from Kentucky, Delaware, North Carolina, etc., 
whose votes we shall need and shall have for California anyhow, 
but whose cordial, zealous co-operation in the final struggle is 
well worth at least civility ? It does seem to us that much of 
the present rancor against the Omnibus project evinced by those 
who are enraptured with the President's, is not wise for the 
cause of freedom. It may be well meant, but we think it as 
often affected by personal aspirations. Let the politicians profit 
by the example of the people and keep cool. There may yet 
be a demand for agitation and excitement, but when there is it 
will be impelled by something broader than the difference be- 
tween the President's plan and Mr. Clay's. 

Any assumption that a change of the government of the Ter- 
ritories from military to civil would protract the period of their 
territorial pupilage a number of years, is entirely gratuitous. 
On the contrary, we believe New Mexico would be sooner pre- 
pared for admission into the Union if a territorial government 
were now accorded her. And any insinuation that a regular 
civil government will afford to slavery additional facilities for 
making a lodgment in the Territory is nothing less than a direct 
impeachment of the integrity of the President, by whom its 
executive and judicial functionaries without exception are to be 
nominated. 

As to the partisan aspects of this question, or any such question, 
we have strong conviction that, ' ' He that would save his life shall 
lose it. ' ' The party which tries hardest to make capital out of these 
sectional struggles will lose most by them, while that party which 
thinks most of doing right and least of making capital or preserv- 
ing its unity will come out best. We speak from general prin- 
ciples, and without having attempted to cast the horoscope of 
this particular question. 



70 LETTER FROM GENERAL SCHOULER. [May 

[From the Editor of the Boston Atlas.'] 

Boston, May 17, 1850. 

My Dear Pike : I owe you two or three apologies for not having 
answered your last letter, but I have been so busy and had so many calls 
to receive and calls to make that my time has slipped by without count- 
ing it. I read all your letters in the Tribune, and they are number one, 
prime. They talk just as everybody talks here, and just as we want to 
have everybody talk in Washington. 

Old Zach is at this moment the popular man in the country, and 
heaps of Freesoilers are going for him. They are (I mean the honest old 
Whig portion) delighted with him. If we act with wisdom we shall be 
like that man who takes 

' ' the tide in his affairs 
Which leads to fortune." 

If we were to follow the lead of the old Hunkerdom of Clay we should 
be led, as Byron says of the tide in the affairs of women, " God knows 
where." 

Why cannot you resume your correspondence with the Atlas? 
Dr. Brewer has left Washington, and we now have no one there. The 
Atlas will welcome you and give you verge and scope to your heart's 
content, and never once try to clip your plumage. You may call Loco- 
focos Democrats, or vice versa. So, my dear fellow, spread yourself, 
and if there be any thing in my power to aid or assist you in accomplish- 
ing, draw upon me. Greely says so too ; so do write — won't you ? I 
shall not insist upon a too frequent correspondence ; daily I should like, 
but tri, semi, or weekly will be gratifying. As the old fellow at the 
prayer-meeting, upon being asked if he would not make a short prayer, 

said, " He had no objection to making the prayer, but he'd be d if 

he would be limited as to time." 

Every thing political is quiet just now. We hope to send you by the 
first week in June the Hon. Benjamin Thompson to take his seat in 
Congress from the Fourth District. Things look mighty nice there just 
now. I feel confident that Thompson will be chosen ; and if he is 
chosen, you may rest assured that the popularity of old Zach will have 
done much towards it. Thompson is a very respectable man — " a 
human man ;" not a great man, but a man of sense, and goes old Zach 
to the death. 

I shall write you again next week. In the meantime I remain, yours 
very truly, 

Wm. Schouler. 



1850] MR. CLAY'S TEMPESTUOUS DEMONSTRATION. 71 

ME. CLAY'S SPEECH. 
[From the New York Tribune] 

Washington, "Wednesday, May 20. 

We could not well avoid the attempt to repel groundless im- 
putations or to wipe the dust from a blurred case. Having no 
doubt the opinions and suspicions expressed were most honestly 
entertained, we could not presume they were entertained by one 
only. Our brief reply was therefore general. We have gone 
rapidly over the whole ground, from time to time, and we pro- 
pose no repetition. The President's plan is simple and easily un- 
derstood. We believe the people understand it, approve it, 
and will support it. We need not say that we believe it to be 
the most wise, conciliatory, healing, and in every way the best 
that has been or can be offered. We believe, moreover, it will 
be forced upon the country by the necessities of the case, though 
all the leading statesmen of the country conspire against it, as 
they seem to be doing. 

As for the reasons of our advocacy of the President's plan, 
and our opposition to the Omnibus, we refer to the record where 
they are expressed. If anybody chooses to impute mean motives, 
this is not our fault. We will not take the trouble to contradict 
them, but tranquilly pity their ignorance, while we suspect their 
own virtues. We have no need to say that we know well enough 
the editor of the Tribune intends no such thing:. 

Mr. Clay was on his high horse again yesterday. He made a 
rattling, thundering, smashing speech. He came down upon 
Mr. Soule and upon the Administration like a wolf on the fold. 
His declamation was brilliant, impudent, and provoking. We 
known of no man who can excite simultaneously the feelings of 
admiration ana resentment so effectually as Mr. Clay. His 
oratory teaches us to see how it is that an Irishman can enjoy a 
shillalah fight with his best friend. In his speech of yesterday 
Mr. Clay would say something in one breath for which one de- 
sired to embrace him, and in another, something that would 
prompt a man of any combativeness to wish to knock him down. 
He portrayed the blessings of fraternal union, the delights of 
concord, harmony, and peace ; he expressed his. desire to heal 
divisions and allay animosities and irritations ; and then he chal- 



72 HIS EXTRAORDINARY ORATORY. [Mat 

lenged the Administration to bring out a champion of its policy 
on the floor of the Senate, and meet him face to face, and lie 
promised to grind him to powder. Mr. Clay became deeply ex- 
cited. He displayed the spirit and the fire of youth. Deep, 
pervading passion spoke in his impetuous gestures and his purple 
countenance. He became unusually voluble and impassioned. 
His voice was never more flexible or more trumpet-toned. 
He thundered and lightened and stormed amain. He shook 
his hoary locks, gray with three and seventy winters. His 
features gleamed with demoniac energy. Withering blasts came 
from his mouth. He rained down censures and imprecations. 
He seemed to wing his way through and over the Senate cham- 
ber like a hawk over the frightened flock of a barn -yard ; self- 
poised, he pounced upon this argument and that, and tore it in 
pieces as with the beak and talons of a vulture. Old as he is, his 
eye was not dim nor his natural force abated. He alluded to the 
policy of the Administration on the territorial and slavery ques- 
tions in terms of mingled scorn, contempt, derision, hate, and 
inflexible opposition. He denounced the plan in whole and in 
detail. He dared any senator to rise in his place and defend it. 

One word of his arguments. Pardon us, but they were of 
small account. He indulged in figures, but he made no points. 
We amend by saying he did make one. After likening the con- 
dition of the country to a patient with five dangerous, bleeding 
wounds, all of which he proposed to heal by his Omnibus, but 
only one of which the President proposed to touch, he came to 
the only point of his speech. This was in relation to the govern- 
ment for New Mexico. He said she ought to have a govern- 
ment ; that her necessities demanded it, and our treaty stipula- 
tions required it. The answer is, the President's policy will insure 
her one by allowing her to follow the example of California, and 
come into the Union as a State. Mr. Clay knew what the answer 
would be, and he forestalled it, by declaring that New Mexico is 
unfit to be admitted as a State, and that he would vote against 
admitting her as one. This is taking the bull by the horns. 
Without taking this extreme position, Mr. Clay sees that he has 
really nothing substantial to oppose to the President's plan. 
This is reason enough for taking it. It is designed to checkmate 
that policy. But if New Mexico is not fit now, when, we 



1850] MR. CLAY'S EXAGGERATIONS. 73 

desire to know, will she be ? Must we wait for the full civiliza- 
tion, enlightenment, Christianizing, protestantizing, we may say, 
of her mixed population ? Will that be in this generation ? or 
even in the next ? It is too late to talk of this disability and 
embarrassment. It was urged during the war, during the pen- 
dency of the negotiations for peace, and in the discussions on the 
treaty. But w r e have got New Mexico with her population, such 
as it is, and we must make the best of her. We cannot say she 
shall not come among us because her style of civilization is not 
quite up to the genuine Anglo-Saxon. 

But of the three remaining bleeding wounds which Mr. Clay 
complains the Administration neglects, and which he says threaten 
the depletion of the country till it can no longer survive, what 
shall be seriously said ? Instead of being dangerous wounds, as 
is represented, they are scarcely pin scratches. A government 
for Utah. This is one of the three. Where is its pressing- 
necessity ? There is nothing but a Mormon settlement there ; 
and for the present, and we do not know for how long to come, 
it can very well take care of itself. It desires more to be let 
alone than any thing else, unless it can come in as a State. 

And now we will ask if anybody really believes that the peace 
and harmony of this country will be in any manner or degree 
jeoparded by a failure at this session, or of this Congress, to pass . 
a new Fugitive Slave bill, or a bill for abolishing the Slave-Trade 
in the District ? These are the remaining two wounds that Mr. 
Clay says the Administration so criminally neglects. Yet they 
Jiave both existed just as they are for sixty years, and it is only 
now that it has been suddenly discovered how imminently threat- 
ening and dangerous they are. J . S. P. 



J. S. P. 

[Comments by the A lbany Register of Monday, May 20.] 

The Boston Courier of Friday contains another letter from 
its notorious correspondent J. S. P. He lately poured forth a 
bitter flood of spite and venom against Daniel Webster, and now 
he comes down with increased malevolence upon Henry Clay. 
Wnat kind of a Whig must he be who takes such demoniac pleas- 



74 PERSONAL ATTACK OF THE ALBANY REGISTER . [Mat 

ure in maligning the purest, the greatest, and best men in the 
party ? "We supposed in 1844 that the Democrats were up to 
abusing the Kentucky statesman about as thoroughly as it could 
be done, but they must yield the palm to J. S. P. We shall 
look in vain among the files of their papers for abuse that equals 
his. And now we shall wait patiently to see what good from 
such attacks will accrue to the Whig party. We have reliable 
information as to the source from whence these missiles emanate, 
and are at no loss to conceive the motives of those who hurl 
them — they doubtless contemplate a reorganization of the Whig 
- ; party upon an exclusive basis — but the project is conceived in 
weakness, and will be brought forth in shame and sorrow, a mis- 
erable abortion ; and we repeat we shall wait anxiously to see 
what good will result from a persistence in such a suicidal course. 
It is easier to tear down than to build up ; the Whig party might 
perhaps be disorganized and destroyed in a month, or even a 
week, but it would take ten years to form another in its stead. 
We should like to see it get on prosperously after one half, and 
that the best part of it, is cast off and thrown overboard ; in 
spite of all accessions from Abolitionists, Freesoilers, and Ben- 
ton Democrats, it would be found, in such an event, remarkable 
for nothing but its weakness. United we stand — divided we must 
fall. We are for the union of the Whig party ; for its consolida- 
tion on a national platform, and utterly opposed to the schemes 
of selfish politicians professing to be AYhigs, whose mischievous 
designs find utterance through the wicked and unprincipled 
communications of the Mr. J. S. P. 's. 



CLAY 8 GREAT SPEECH. 
[From the Boston Courier.'] 

Washikgton, May 22, 1850. 
Mr. Clay's speech, delivered yesterday, was one of those match- 
less specimens of brilliant impudence for which this eminent 
statesman has so long been distinguished. In it Mr. Clay set 
himself up as the guide and teacher of the President of the 
United States. He undertook the modest task of calling him 
up and administering chastisement to him, as a pedagogue 



1850] MR. CLAY'S ASSAULT ON THE PRESIDENT. 75 

might be expected to administer it to a refractory schoolboy. 
We undertake to say that the history of American politics can- 
not show a parallel to the impudent assumptions and astounding 
impertinences of the illustrious orator, towards the head of the 
government, exhibited yesterday. 

Let us enumerate the facts of this case, and see if we are not 
fully borne out in these declarations. On the last day of the 
year 1849, the House of Eepresentatives passed a resolution ask- 
ing the President for information in regard to the territories ac- 
quired from Mexico. On the 21st of January following, Presi- 
dent Taylor communicated the desired information in a bundle 
of documents large enough to load a wheelbarrow. He accompa- 
nied them with a message saying, in brief, that California had 
formed a State constitution, and he therefore recommended her 
admission into the Union. He further stated that there was a 
settlement of our countrymen at the Salt Lake (meaning the 
Mormons), but he did not recommend any measure of govern- 
ment in relation to them, partaking undoubtedly of the general 
sentiment that at present it was unnecessary. In respect to 
New Mexico the President said he had given the same advice to 
her that he had to California, namely, recommended the people 
of the Territory to form a plan of a State constitution, and sub- 
mit it to Congress, with a prayer for admission as a State. 

This brief narrative embraces all the material facts of the 
case, so far as the President has acted in regard to the whole sub- 
ject of slavery and the Territories. What the President has done 
he has done in the immediate discharge of his official duty ; and 
in direct obedience to the commands of the House of Representa- 
tives he has laid an account thereof before that body. 

Now, we here beg to make the humble inquiry, what is there 
in these proceedings for which the President of the United States 
should be assailed and called to account in the Senate of the 
United States by one of the sixty members of that body ? 
What is there in these regular and proper proceedings that is of 
such a nature as to excuse the extraordinary demand of Mr. 
Clay that a defender and champion of General Taylor should 
appear on the floor of the Senate to make immediate and satis- 
factory answer to this imperious senator on his arraignment ? 
We might well ask what there could be in any proceedings of 






76 MR. CLAY CRITICISED. [Mat 

the President that would afford a warrant for a senator to de- 
mand a champion to appear in behalf of the President, and 
answer to him, the aforesaid senator, for any and all charges, 
whether of sins of omission or of commission, that he might 
prefer against that high officer of state ? Who has commissioned 
Mr. Clay to sit in judgment upon the President of the United 
States, and empowered him to pass sentence upon the conduct 
of the Executive in the regular discharge of his official duty ; 
condemning him on his own individual responsibility both for 
what he has done and what he has not done ? For be it known 
that what the President has not done is as much and as loudly 
censured by this new self -chosen, self-acting, illegitimate individ- 
iial authority in the State, as for the acts of commission per- 
formed by that high functionary. We might well smile at and 
deride this ridiculous position and pretension of Mr. Clay, did 
we not see manifested on every side an apparent acquiescence 
in his extraordinary and impudent assumptions. 

But setting aside for the moment all the gross improprieties 
of the case, let us see what Mr. Clay assails the President for 
doing. It is not for recommending the admission of California, 
for here the senator from Kentucky vouchsafes his concurrence 
with the Executive. But it is for recommending New Mexico 
to present a State constitution and to pray for admission into 
the Union. This is a thing the President has done. Mr. Clay, 
in the plenitude of his assumed authority, with a sublimity of 
impudence that surpasses all ordinary conception of this quality, 
says, in effect, " This is altogether wrong. New Mexico ought 
not to have a State government. She should be a erected into 
a Territory. She is unfit for a State government. Standing 
here in my place, with all the responsibilities of my position 
upon me, I declare that I will not vote for her admission as a 
State. General Taylor, you should have known better than to 
make such a ridiculous recommendation. Sir, you should have 
consulted me on this question. " It is thus Mr. Clay undertakes 
to read the President a lecture upon what he has done, in the 
discharge of his official duty, and to unceremoniously condemn 
and repudiate it as unfit action for the President of the United 
States, he, Mr. Clay, assuming to be sole judge, and an arbiter 
in the premises. We ask again, whence comes Mr. Clay's pre- 



1850] HIS ARGUMENTS ANSWERED. 77 

tentions claim to supervise the official action of the President, 
and refer it for approval or condemnation to his individual judg- 
ment ? What means this unparalleled presumption of a demand 
upon the President to defend himself to Henry Clay ? 

" Upon what meat has this our Caesar fed?" 

Who constituted Mr. Clay the lieutenant-general of the Presi- 
dent ? 

But more offensive and preposterous still is Mr. Clay's pre- 
sumption in calling the President to account for his sins of omis- 
sion — for not doing what Mr. Clay, in the infinite comprehension 
of his administrative powers, thinks he ought to have done. 
Really, if one were not utterly confounded in reflecting upon 
the extravagance of this censure, he might give himself up to a 
vacant admiration of the inconceivable self-sufficiency that would 
prompt the application of such a rule of judging the President 
as this implies. Arraigning the President for what he has not 
done ? And such an arraignment ! Not for omitting to dis- 
charge a palpable constitutional duty ! Oh no ! But for omit- 
ting to do three particular tilings — or, to adopt Mr. Clay's own 
figurative speech, for omitting to bind up three wounds of the 
body politic, each of which threatens its life. Well, what are 
they ? What are these flagrant omissions of urgent and para- 
mount duty on the part of the Executive ? Let the country 
listen — let the earth and the heavens listen — to the fatal charges 
of omission brought by the great Kentuckian against General 
Zachary Taylor, President of the United States. 

Charge first : He has perfidiously neglected to recommend the 
abolition of the slave-trade in the District of Columbia. A 
trade, oe it remembered, that has existed during the entire life 
of this government, under every administration from George 
Washington to James K. Polk inclusive ; which no President 
has ever yet recommended to abolish, and no steps to abolish which 
have ever been before taken by Mr. Clay himself, though he has 
been a member of one or the other branch of Congress for forty 
years. And yet because Zachary Taylor, in the first year of his 
administration, and the first year of his civil life, has omitted to 
do what every one of his predecessors have omitted to do ; and what 
Mr. Clay himself, though for forty years and upwards in public 



78 THE MORMONS. [May 

life, has never before attempted" or suggested ; lie is to be 
brought up to the bull-ring and publicly bastinadoed by the 
aforesaid celebrated senator. We have no desire to exaggerate ; 
but we wish to ask how this plain recital makes charge number 
one look ? 

Charge second : The President has been guilty, in precisely 
the same manner and degree, of neglecting to recommend a change 
in the fugitive slave law — a law which has remained untouched on 
the statute-book for forty-seven years, through all changes and 
mutations of parties and administrations, slumbering in profound 
and undisturbed quiet during the whole period, and never before 
dragged from its dusty repose to the light of day by even that 
vigilant guardian of the public welfare Mr. Clay himself. In- 
deed, almost the same thing, word for word, can be said of the 
fugitive slave law that we have said of the abolition of the slave- 
trade in the District. And the same condign punishment is to 
be meted out to the President for this omission as for the one 
tirst noticed. This is charge number two, and we ask again how 
does this look ? 

Charge third : The President has neglected to recommend a 
territorial government for Utah — a country so new, so un- 
known, that even a name had to be provided for it at the present 
session — a country which had not been born into civilization long 
enough to have been christened, before the Committee of Thirteen 
met ; without any white population whatever, save a peripatetic 
band of the deluded followers of one of the greatest impostors 
of this century, held together only by ties of a gross superstition, 
calling themselves saints, and desiring to live apart from their 
fellowmen ; a community liable to explode into its original ele- 
ments, to dwindle into insignificance, or sink in oblivion when- 
ever the gross and ignorant superstition upon which it rests shall 
fade. To suddenly and precipitately provide a government 
for such an anomalous people, who seem, at least, whatever their 
peculiarities of religious faith, to be able to provide for their 
own internal security through the bonds and influences of that 
faith, would seem to reflect upon the intelligence of the Presi- 
dent recommending such a provision, rather than that the omis- 
sion to do so could be magnified into a plain dereliction of duty. 
Yet, to make up his list of grievances to a respectable number, 



1850] MR. CLAY'S "BLEEDING WOUNDS." 79 

this is appended to the other two. This is the third and last of 
the "bleeding wounds" that President Taylor, in the medical 
language of Mr. Clay, has neglected to bind up, and for whose 
omissions to do so he deserves the public reprehension ; nay, 
more — s&oee omissions herein recapitulated are declared by Mr. 
Clay to be indefensible, and who challenges opposition to his 
opinion on the floor of the Senate, with the air and front and 
bearing of a gladiator who feels himself to be master of a public 
ring. 

Here we have the whole bill of particulars. Here is the 
triumphant, overwhelming array of charges brought by Mr. Clay 
against the President in his lofty-toned speech of yesterday, to 
combat which he exultingly demanded a champion to appear on 
the floor of the Senate. Here is the crushing load of official de- 
linquency piled upon the President's back by Mr. Clay to break 
him down. And what does it all amount to ? 

First. The President recommends the admission of Cali- 
fornia. Good. 

Second. He recommends New Mexico to erect herself into a 
State and present herself for admission into the Union. What 
has the President neglected here ? And in what has he 
offended, save only that he differs from Mr. Clay ? 

Third. He has omitted to recommend a government for the 
American Utopia — Utah. On which we have said enough. 

Fourth and fifth. He has said nothing to Congress about 
runaway negroes or the abolition of the slave-trade in this Dis- 
trict. An abolition that is the merest burlesque and mockery 
that ever occupied the grave attention of sensible men. An 
abolition which is nothing more nor less than drawing away a 
putrid carcass from before a gentleman's mansion to leave it to 
fester and pollute the atmosphere of some less aristocratic neigh- 
borhood. It needs to be buried, not removed. Pass the law 
proposed, and not a manacle falls from the limbs of a single 
human victim, and not a slave less will be sold in the American 
market. What is it then but a mockery ? Bleeding wounds 
indeed ! And is there need to say a word of the President's 
duty to take special notice of the subject of fugitive slaves ? All 
know there is none. Let it sleep the sleep of death in the 
musty records of a past century. 



80 APPEAL FOR A CHAMPION. [May 

We might go on. There seems no need to do so. It is as 
clear as the sunlight that the President has done his duty in re- 
gard to the subjects in question with impartiality, faithfulness, 
wisdom, and prudence. What he has done is well done, what 
he has omitted to do speaks as loudly for his justice and 
sagacity. 

We have thus presented to view the extraordinary attitude of 
Mr. Clay before the country, assumed in his late speech, and 
have also laid before the reader the various charges that he has 
preferred against the President, in his new capacity of self-made 
political Pope. We have exhibited in as clear a light as we have 
been able the unfounded pretensions of Mr. Clay to exercise 
jurisdiction over the proper domain of the President, and have 
considered the one charge of commission, and the three charges 
of omission, brought by Mr. Clay against that functionary, 
with a view to show the strength and propriety of General Tay- 
lor's, and the weakness and impropriety of Mr. Clay's positions. 
We trust the " champion" will appear in the Senate who will do 
it more fully and ably. 

And here let us say that we take no pleasure in these expo- 
sitions of the conduct and positions of distinguished Whigs. 
We are animated only by the desire that the truth should be 
told. We think it ought to be told. We wish there 
were more who felt themselves free to speak as they think. 
There is a natural unwillingness on the part of Whigs to see, 
and still more to report the delinquencies of the old champions 
of the party. But we believe that neither the cause of 
truth nor the cause of the party is best subserved by silence 
in the present juncture. We have not hesitated, therefore, 
to utter our opinions promptly and fully on former occa- 
sions. We do not hesitate now ; yet we do it and have done it 
at the cost of personal relations more agreeable and gratifying 
than any others we can ever form, and for which no compensa- 
tion can be made. We are frank and open at the expense of 
political friendships both in high stations and in low. But we 
have no alternative but to be false to our convictions of truth, 
and regardless of the judgments of our understanding. Let 
these considerations be an answer to the editor of the Albany 
State Register, whose harsh remarks might be fairly considered 



1850] PATRIOTIC IRON MEN. 81 

deserving of a reply in a far different tone. But he speaks at. 
random and in ignorance ; we shall not simulate a feeling 
towards him we do not entertain. J. S. P. 



MR. CLAY AND HIS COMPROMISE. 
[From the New York Tribune.] 

Washington, Saturday, May 25. 

If Mr. Clay were in Ashland, or under ground, there would 
not be one chance in a hundred of carrying the Compromise. 
As he is here, and not in either of the retreats referred to, the 
chances are probably raised to about one in ten. As a man of 
action he is an amazing man. In carrying a measure his 
oratory remarkable as it is, is only an auxiliary force. He 
hardly finishes a prayer to Jupiter before he jumps into the mud 
up to his knees and puts his shoulder to the wheel with the 
strength of a Samson. 

It is at once curious and amusing to observe just now with 
what feelings of apprehension Mr. Clay is regarded by many of 
those who are deeply solicitous to defeat the Omnibus. They 
know he has a poor chance, but they stand in great dread of his 
skill and resources. They don't know who he may alarm, who 
seduce, who cajole, who terrify, who persuade, who wheedle, 
who convert, who obfuscate, who overreach, who subdue, who 
magnetize, who cheat out of his senses, who entice by soft words, 
and who by promises of advantage. They know he is indefati- 
gable and indomitable. He is constantly talking, dining, receiv- 
ing, and puts himself plump into every man's weak side. He 
takes the iron fellows of Pennsylvania aside and demands to 
know if they can hope any thing will be done for their perishing 
interests until this agitating, distracting, convulsing subject of 
slavery is disposed of ? If they won't come in and help settle 
it they must stay out in the cold. Forthwith numerous mem- 
bers of the Pennsylvania delegation become vastly patriotic. 
They desire " conciliation, concession, compromise." In other 
words, a higher duty on iron. In fact, Pennsylvania is the weak 
spot in this sell. The people of this State are undoubtedly ex- 
tremely honest, extremely patriotic, excessively conciliatory, and 



82 COTTON PATRIOTS. [May 

just now greatly given to harmony and concord. But still they 
want a higher duty on iron. They say to the compromisers, 
" We are very much disposed to go for your bill ; but then you 
won't forget the iron." " We think, gentlemen, this agitating 
subject should be settled ; things are in a deplorable condition 
and we are willing to yield something to preserve fraternal peace 
and concord ; but you will of course remember the iron." 

But not only so with the iron men. Numerous gentlemen are 
and have been here from Massachusetts, groaning over their 
struggling and declining establishments. What does Mr. Clay 
say to these ? " Well, gentlemen, I am glad to see you ; what 
do you think of the compromise ? Ah ! my friends, what can 
be expected so long as Massachusetts arrays herself against this 
measure of peace, justice, ' concession, conciliation, and com- 
promise.' If we could only compose and settle this agitating, 
disturbing subject, and restore tranquillity to the country, much 
might be expected from our Southern friends in the way of a 
little increase of duties — on the revenue principle — on the rev- 
enue principle of course. ' ' And we would not swear that there 
are not Massachusetts men in the city who are not green enough 
to swallow the bait. He pitches into the manufacturers and manu- 
facturers' agents with a bold, devil-may-care front, and tells 
them they may all go to grass if they don't come up to the sup- 
port of his Omnibus. If they will do this, they may rely upon 
him for a lift. And they know well enough he is a man worth 
enlisting, and as a parcel of the Southern Democracy are training 
in his company just now, they are verdant enough to imagine 
these men will obey Mr. Clay's orders to right-about-face on the 
tariff question. 

This is the state of things here, and it is affirmed, with what 
truth we know not, that such Whigs of Pennsylvania as Mr. 
Casey, Chester Butler, etc. , are in an inquiring state of mind in 
regard to their duty at the present juncture. We have heard of 
a man who always used a microscope to discover his interest, but 
who clapped on a pair of leather spectacles to ascertain his duty. 
We trust neither of these gentlemen are in this predicament. 
We hope no Whig will be caught in the scrape of selling his 
vote where he is sure to get cheated out of his pay. He will 
thus not only earn the title of knave, but fool. But Mr. Clay 



18501 LETTER FROM CHARLES A. DANA. 83 

will pull every string with energy and desperation ; for he knows 
if he falls here he falls like Lucifer, never to rise again. 

J. S. P. 



[From Charles A. Dana.] 

New York, May 29, 1850. 

Greatest and Best of Pikes : I have long desired and designed 
to write you a letter, and no doubt you have long expected it ; but with 
me the idea is easy, the execution difficult. In fact, I intend to 
petition the extra session of our legislature, now about to be held, for an 
elongation of the days and a second pair of hands in order to come a 
little nearer what I want to do. 

First and foremost, a thousand thanks for your articles, especially 
that which I headed ' ' Wanted a Candidate, ' ' and that on ' ' Prospects 
of Disunion." They were great and good, and stirred up the animals, 
which you as Avell as I recognize as one of the great ends of life. The 
fact is that between you and mo we have bothered the Silver Greys most 
infernally, and probably shall do so again. 

I suppose you are swearing at the non-appearance of your response 
on the banking business ; but I have had it in type ever since it got here, 
with some most sound, conservative, and elegant remarks from the able pen 
of one of the first writers in the country attached, and that every night 
on leaving the office I have regularly ordered that that article shall go in 
on the editorial page, but that hitherto it has been constantly and per- 
sistently and pertinaciously crowded out by other things. However, I 
live in hope of printing it to-morrow. The article on Webster was 
postponed in consequence of the Buffalo speech, but it will hit 'em hard 
in a day or two. That on the Halifax Railroad I shortened in order to 
get it in right off, and besides, it is rather late in the day for such a 
radical sheet as the Trib. to say by way of programme that it is going 
to keep in the golden mean betwixt red and white. The thing is good 
to do perhaps, but I don't exactly like to say it along with the Roches- 
ter knocking, and the No-Petticoat Movement. And so you'll forgive 
the liberty I took with your mss. . • . . There's no other man I know 
of whom I should like so well to come in as an associate in the toils, 
glories, and profits of this newspaper, which I reckon to be at the begin- 
ning of its career. I hope we can fetch it about. You will understand 
that I don't say this by way of compliment. What I am after is the 
interest of the paper. 

Yours ever truly, C. A. Dana. 



84 LETTER FROM MRS. JOHN DA VIS. [June 

[From Mrs Governor Davis.] 

Washington, June 19, 1850. 

. . . Thanks for your hint about the Boston letter ; but Childs 
need not expect to catch old birds with chaff ; just tell him so, and tell 
him not to be so indefinite. The Chicopee folks send it with a con- 
struction of their own. They say it means, " Vote for Taylor's plan ! !" 
Will Childs indorse that ? or will he expound it to mean, Give to the 
South all they ask ? There is no medium, and it is melancholy to see 
that by votes from Free States they are getting all they want. The 
Omnibus will go through the Senate. Bridges are being built to enable 
men to cross the gulf, and the report to-day is that there can be no 
doubt. Mr. Davis almost wishes Jefferson Davis's amendment may be 
adopted, that the Northern men may be effectually cornered. The tariff 
still slumbers, but probably that will be brought to bear in the House. 
Mr. Badger says there can be no Southern vote for a tariff if this bill is 
defeated. I hope we are not quite ready to sell soul and body too for 
cotton. 

We often wish for your good company. Mrs. Grinnell desires her 
regard, and the gentlemen would too if they were hear ; but I write 
without delay, after reading your letter, fearing I may fall into my old 
habit of waiting a more convenient season, till finally I am ashamed to 
do it at all. With great regard, 

Your friend, E. Davis. 

I have opened my letter to say to you that Mr. Dayton has just come 
in from the Senate quite in spirits. He says he told Clay he wished to 
go home a day or two, and asked him what would be done to-mor- 
row. " My God," says Clay, " don't ask me. Who can tell for to- 
morrow. I wish I could be well out of this matter. Woe to the day I 
ever touched it." Berrien offered an amendment which has offended 
him, and he said so. "I am not a school-boy to be lectured," says 
Berrien. "I am too old for that, sir." "Aha!" says Dayton, "I 
have thought so too, but you must take your turn." The bridges are 
caving in, and the hope is our folks still keep a majority, notwithstand- 
ing absenteeism. Borland and Bradbury have decamped, but it is said 
the rest will not be coaxed even by Clay. So much for to-day. 
Wednesday, 4 o'clock. 



1850] LETTERS FROM I. WASHBURN, JR., AND GREELEY. 85 

[From Hon. Israel Washburn, Jr.] 

Washington, June 24, 1850. 

Dear Pike : I could not obtain for you any good account of the 
reciprocity treaty in its details, and therefore sent you nothing in refer- 
ence to it. 

I see that the Maine Hunkers have nominated Albion K. Parris for 
Governor. They passed no resolutions in the convention approving- 
Nebraska or the Administration. This shows the feeling of Maine upon 
the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. 

Suppose you inquire in the Tribune, 'an you've a mind to, whether 
Governor Parris is for or against the repeal, for or against acquiescence, 
and whether, when in Washington, a few weeks ago, he spoke of the 
measure approvingly, and took credit to himself for discouraging a meet- 
ing of the citizens of Portland to protest against it. 

Don't you think that the North ought to acquiesce in the Mississippi 
Compromise repeal ? Why should she keep up a perpetual row on this 
slave question ? Why should not Northern Whigs go for acquiescence, 
a free-trade tariff, and Millard Fillmore ? 

The address lately issued troubles our weak-backs greatly. They 
don't like to stand it, and don't dare disavow it. The address came 
not a moment too soon. Some of our Whigs were hoping to be allowed 
to slide quietly and silently into acquiescence. Let them wriggle. 
In haste, yours ever truly, 



J. S. Pike, Esq. 



I. Washburn, Jr. 



[From Horace Greeley.] 

New York, August 22, 1850. 

Dear Pike : I hope you'll go to Congress, and in due season to 
heaven, but the look is not so good as I could wish. However, go 
ahead, and you will be certain to land somewhere. . . . 

If you can manage to handle your adversary as venomously as you 
did the Compromise, you will at least make him sorry he ever encoun- 
tered you. 

Luck to you, and don't forget to telegraph me the first news of your 
election. Yours, Horace Greeley. 

J. S. Pike, Esq. 



86 LETTER FROM HON. TRUMAN SMITH. [Aug. 1850 

[From Hon. Truman Smith.] 

Washington City, August 26, 1850. 
Dear Sir : Pursuant to order, I this morning went at the Hon. 
Corwin, Pike in hand, and I have to say there will not, in my opinion, 
be the slightest difficulty in regard to the matter to which you refer. I 
will write you again in two or three days. Push ahead ! Smite down 
the Philistines. 

I am, Hon. Pike, ever yours, Truman Smith. 

P.S. — I will send you a few copies of my recent speech on that novel 
topic the negro question ! Perhaps they may do good. 



Makch 1851] LETTER FROM CHARLES A. DANA. 87 



1851. 



[From Charles A. Dana. 

New York, March 26, 1851. 

Friend Pike : To take things by the butt, let me begin by saying 
to you from H. G. that you must run for Governor in your State next 
election, when he is confident you will get a lot of Freesoil votes. 

But my own purpose in writing is to say that Greeley leaves for 
Europe in about three weeks, and will be gone till the first of September, 
as I suppose. During this time I shall have the paper on my shoul- 
ders, and shall be glad of your help. What do you say to writing 
an article, political or other, once a week ? You can do it, you know, 
wherever you are. As for compensation, that shall be for you to decide 
about. 

And now for the final and main proposition : what do you say to 
going into the Tribune regularly and permanently ? We want to get 
around it such a mass and variety of ability as to render it independent 
of individuals. You are the man we want, and I am confident you 
would find the position to your gusto. Of course we should prefer to 
have you one of the proprietors, and I know of no way in which you 
could invest money better. I am now moving to buy some stock, not 
now having enough, and should like to have you join in the operation. 

Let me hear from you as soon as convenient. 

Yours faithfully, Charles A. Dana. 



[From Charles A. Dana.1 

Tribune Office, April 8, 1851. 
My Dear Pike : About that stock business. The Tribune is held 
in one hundred shares, of which Greeley owns twenty-five ; McElrath, 
twenty-five ; Snow, ten ; Strebeigh (advertising man), ten ; Taylor, five ; 



88 LETTER FROM CHARLES A. DANA. [Apkil 

Dana, five ; Rooker (foreman), five ; Sinclair (book-keeper), three ; 
Hall (pressman), two ; Ripley, one, etc. 

In 1849 the concern divided $25,000 ; 1850, $30,000 ; 1851 it is 
sure to divide from $40,000 to $60,000 ; the first quarter has salted 
down $20,000, but the remainder of the year won't do as well. As you 
see, it is not bad property. Besides, it is growing prodigiously. 

The price at which the youngsters were admitted into the concern on 
January 1, 1849, was $1000 per share. The price has risen since. 
Last winter Mac, who had originally five-eighths of the establishment, 
sold several shares at $1500. I am sure now that he will not sell at that 
price. But if he will sell me ten shares for $20,000 I shall buy them, 
paying cash or the same thing ; or if he will sell five for $10,000 ; or if 
he refuses to sell a part, but will sell the whole twenty -five for $45,000 
or $50,000, I shall make a push at it. Or if he will sell the ten for 
$22,000, or even up to $25,000, I have made up my mind to try it. 
You see I am sharpened for a trade any way. I regard the property as 
unequalled, as good as real estate, or better, because it is capable of 
indefinite extension and improvement. Greeley is of the same opinion. 
Snow and the others have lower ideas about it, and regard it as liable to 
most serious depreciation by the accident of Greeley's death, if that 
should happen some fine morning. That would certainly be a great mis- 
fortune ; but such is, in my opinion, the momentum of the concern that 
it would still go ahead conquering and to conquer. Especially should I 
feel secure on that point if we could get aboard a man of your calibre. 
Or, as you see, in any event, nothing is needed but energetic direction 
and the judicious expenditure of money to put the thing through forever. 
There is talent enough to be had in the world if you will only pay for it. 

Now let me know whether you are inclined to join me in this opera- 
tion with McElrath, supposing one comes to a head. It will take the tin 
either now or within ninety days. I should like to have you go in 
either for five or ten shares, or any number you would like. He has 
twenty -five ; but if we buy all, two or three must be reserved for young- 
sters in the office who have the promise of a share apiece when they are 
ready to pay for them. Or, in order to get you into the concern, I 
reckon Greeley would sell you a few shares, say five, if, after trial, we 
should hitch horses all round, as I have no doubt we should. This 
operation with me will not require any trial or if the trial should incline 
you to cut us, will not involve any obligation to cease to be a proprietor 
and pocket the profits. 

Bayard is talking of a trip to Central Africa next winter, and I 
suppose will go. He is bent on it, and already imagines himself dis- 



1851] LETTER FROM MR. DANA. 89 

covering the fountains of the Nile. Perhaps you don't know that he 
lately lost his wife — a girl to whom he had been attached from boyhood, 
and whom he married on her deathbed. It is this partly which inclines 
him to travel. Besides that's his forte. He is not so good a journalist 
as a voyager ; in the latter capacity he may achieve a lasting fame, but 
not in the former. 

I didn't go to Washington. I thought it wouldn't pay in such a 
session. Besides, Greeley wanted to be gone a great deal here and 
there. Perhaps I'll go next winter. 

I hope you'll send me a rocket occasionally during the summer to 
flash up in our sky and save the country, not to speak of saving me 
from making a stupid paper. You see it must be better than when the 
old man is home, or they'll say Dana's a failure ! which God forbid ! 
Yours truly, C. A. Dana. 



[From Charles A. Dana.] 

New York, April 25, 1851. 

Dear Pike : You are great and good, and when you are nominaxea 
for President count on my vote. 

Your Suffolk Bank article is first-rate, but, as luck will have it, right 
in the face of other articles which Greeley wrote and printed not long 
before he left. However, your " piece" goes in with a few words of 
introduction and a brief refutation at the end, which shows up your 
sophistries d la Greeley, only more politely. 

I'll tell you what you ought to write ; it is an article, or more, sharp, 
slashing, and spicy, on the Locofoco candidates for the Presidency. 
... So pitch into 'em hip and thigh. 

I find McElrath not willing to sell out, but willing to sell me five 
shares at a smart price. I have bought, and am to fork up to-day. For 
the five I pay $10,000, he retaining the July dividend, which will 
be $250 per share. I think you will be able to get of Greeley three or 
five at the same price, if you want. I have written to him about it. 

We want an editor permanently at Washington who will do the 
chores there, as we can't get them done by a hired correspondent. You 
are the man for that. You might alternate between there and New 
York, coming on here, for instance, a couple of months at a time, 
when Greeley or I might have to go away. About compensation ; we 
regular stagers don't get very large salaries in proportion to our remark- 
able merits. Greeley has $50 a week ; Snow, $30 ; I, $25 ; Taylor, 



90 CLAIMS OF MR. WEBSTER'S FRIBNDS. [June 

$20 : Cleveland, $18 ; Ripley, $15. All these fellows are proprietors. 
I reckon, however, that we could arrange that matter to your satis- 
faction. 

I have quite set my heart on getting you into the boat ; so has 
Snow ; Greeley likes the idea. So let's go it. 

Yours ever, C. A. Dana. 



TRUTH VINDICATED. 

[From the New York Tribune of June 2, 1851.] 

We have lately taken occasion, with all practicable brevity 
and moderation of language, to examine the position of Mr. 
Webster before the country as expounded and illuminated by 
himself. We have shown the exposition to be unsound and the 
illumination delusive. But if this be true of the master, what 
shall be said of his newest disciples and admirers ? 

We have no objections to the friends of Mr. Webster glorify- 
ing him to the full extent their inclination prompts. But we do 
not feel like sitting quiet when these eulogies imply censure 
upon other distinguished public men, whose course on the Slavery 
question we consider more consistent, more honorable, and more 
just. And we are still less inclined to be passive when those 
commendations involve a falsification of contemporary history. 
Distant papers in the West and South, with here and there a 
dependent organ in the North, are now, and have of late been, 
speaking and dwelling upon the voluntary sacrifice that Mr. 
Webster made, in making his 7th of March speech ; therein 
abandoning the " Proviso, " giving his support to the Fugitive 
Slave law, and otherwise signifying his willingness to subscribe 
to the heated demands of the slave power generally. For doing 
this, Mr. Webster is now extolled as being pre-eminently 
"national," as rising above sectional prejudices, and doing an 
act, or acts, of eminent propriety and patriotism. 

This commendation is a covert censure upon all other North- 
ern statesmen who did not go with him. The idea conveyed, 
and intended to be conveyed, is that Mr. Webster alone, of all 
the prominent Northern public men in Congress, was statesman- 
like in his views, national in tone, and comprehensive in his 



1851] NATURE OF MR. WEBSTER'S SACRIFICE. 91 

judgments. That those who differed from him, of whom the 
category embraces such men as John Davis, "William H. Seward, 
"William L. Dayton, Robert C. Winthrop, and so forth, were 
not national, patriotic, statesmanlike, or comprehensive in their 
views and conduct, but, on the contrary, were sectional, preju- 
diced, narrow, and partisan. This is the obvious import of all 
the eulogies upon Mr. Webster in which his new-found friends 
indulge. "We repel the imputation they convey ; and we deny 
the allegation upon which they rest, namely, that Mr. Webster 
made a voluntary sacrifice in breaking away from the great body 
of Northern men and going directly in the face of his then well- 
known and oft-repeated sentiments. The statement is a falsifica- 
tion of notorious facts. Mr. Webster never intended to make 
any sacrifice, and he never thought he was making any sacrifice 
in taking the ground he did in the 7th of March speech. He 
never intended anything of the sort at the time, before or after- 
ward. 

If there is anything particularly ' ' national ' ' or patriotic in a 
man's backing out of his previous opinions and positions, in 
order to gain Southern support, so be it. We are willing Mr. 
Webster should have all the credit of so much as this. But we 
deny him the merit of any intended ' ' sacrifice. ' ' Mr. Webster 
was undoubtedly over-persuaded into making that speech, and 
into giving in his adhesion to Southern views on the slavery 
question, by Southern men, who ate and drank with him, and 
beset him, morning, noon, and night ; who fairly beleaguered 
and took possession of his person for days and weeks before that 
memorable occasion. The public may recollect something of the 
assiduously deferential tone of the Union newspaper toward Mr. 
Webster at the time. This is merely an index to what was 
going on in private circles. The Southern men got Mr. Web- 
ster to make a Southern speech. Outside they call it ' ' Na- 
tional. " But, in doing it, Mr. Webster never once thought he 
was sacrificing Northern support ; he only thought he was gain- 
ing Southern. He made that speech to get friends at the South 
— never doubting he could hold his own in the North, and not 
dreaming of the possible defection of Massachusetts. Mr. Web- 
ster never had the credit of boldness in making it, for none of 
his friends thought he was running the risk of losing anything, 



92 OTHER NORTHERN PATRIOTS. [June 

politically, by so doing. On the contrary, it was imagined that 
it was a great stroke, and would make Mr. Webster eminently 
popular throughout the South and South-west, and would 
achieve the culmination of his political fortunes by electing him 
to the long-coveted post of the Presidency. This was undoubt- 
edly Mr. Webster's own view ; and far enough is it from the 
idea of a " sacrifice." 

There were a few at Washington who saw, at the time, how 
great was that delusion, and how deep was the pit Mr. Webster 
had dug for himself. But when such intimated that Mr. Web- 
ster would not be likely to sustain himself in the North, and that 
he might even lose Massachusetts, the idea was derided, and the 
suggestion that he could by any possibility fail to carry his own 
State was laughed to scorn. Yet now, in the encomiums upon 
Mr. Webster which we see drifting about the public prints, we 
find those like the following from a St. Louis paper : 

" On an occasion when he had it in his power to secure the support of a 
party who, unfortunately, seem to control the affairs of Massachusetts, and 
thus to strengthen the influence which he has long deservedly exercised in 
that State, he adopted the very course which was to weaken his power 
among his old constituents, and by which he was to sacrifice all prospect of 
future benefit from Massachusetts. He lost his State to preserve the Union. 
He abandoned his own interests to further the general welfare. He severed 
his party attachments to secure the public good. ' ' 

We are perfectly willing to give Mr. Webster all the credit 
to which he is fairly entitled. His situation is not enviable, and 
his course on the great questions of the time does not add to his 
present happiness, neither will it add anything to his future 
renown. Let his friends praise him. We do not object. But 
let them not covertly censure others of our most distinguished 
men in doing it ; neither let them be guilty of the falsification 
of history in the bestowment of their encomiums. Mr. Web- 
ster's intellect is great. But of his unselfish devotion to princi- 
ple, of his moral intrepidity, it is not worth while for his friends 
to be profuse of commendation. On that head the less said the 
better. 

If anybody has made ' ' sacrifices, ' ' it is the men who were 
steadfast to principle against all the shocks and all the stealthy 
assaults upon their virtue in that time of trial. Then, and sub- 



1851] A NEW PARTY. 93 

sequently on the installation of Mr. Fillmore's administration, 
ratting was easy, and could very readily be made profitable. 
The men of the North, who were true to their past professions 
and to their convictions of duty, were those who incurred 
obloquy and made the ' ' sacrifices. ' ' It was they who were put 
under the ban, denounced as sectional, as fanatical, and tempo- 
rarily denationalized, so to speak, by the savage attacks made 
upon them. But they were not swayed from the narrow path 
of rectitude and honor, by any consideration of present or pros- 
pective advantage. 

They are the men, if any, who are specially deserving of 
being held up to the country and the world as pre-eminent in the 
discharge of the duties demanded by principle and by patriotism. 
And when impartial history shall review and record the events 
of the time in which they were actors, it will be their glory, and 
not Mr. Webster's, that will gild the page on which that record 
shall be made. 



A NEW PARTY. 

[From the New York Tribune of June 26.] 

It is right the world should be instructed by clear-headed, 
consistent, and conscientious men. We have, therefore, not a 
word to say when the ex-minister to the Celestial Empire, and 
present Mayor of the city of Newburyport, in the Commonwealth 
of Massachusetts, formerly Whig Member of Congress and 
author of several able speeches against the Sub-Treasury and 
Locofocoism in general, and in favor of Whig policy and Whig 
men, and, more latterly, a general in the Mexican war ; under- 
takes to lay down the law and the gospel to the Union Locos of 
Massachusetts, and to teach them their duty at the present crisis. 
That snug little party, numbering in the State just about enough 
to fill what offices would fall to the share of Massachusetts under 
a Locofoco National Administration, could not have a better 
leader. If the party is not already "conveniently small" he 
will be sure to make it so. Bo gentleman belonging to the State 
possesses larger capacities in this line. We will not even except 
a very distinguished personage of that Commonwealth who has 



94 CALEB CUSH1NG THE HEAD. [June 

handsomely floored the Whig party there, and whose friends are 
just now engaged in publishing posthumous memoirs of his pop- 
ularity, by subscription. 

General Cushing is Chairman of the grand State Central 
Committee, and managing head of the powerful party he now 
essays to lead. The stronghold of this party is among Robert 
Rantoul's constituency, where it numbers 700 good men and 
true out of 15,000 voters who lately went to the polls in that dis- 
trict. In his late manifesto (termed a i ' Report of the Executive 
Committee," made under instruction of the State Central Com- 
mittee), which we find in the Boston papers, the general very 
adroitly ignores all past and present politics, and plants his com- 
pendious forces on a single position. This is a stroke of military 
policy introduced into civil affairs. A handful of men cannot 
defend a long line. They must take to a fortress. The point 
of his discourse is that he goes against making " these now great 
and happy United States a Golgotha. ' ' That is to say he heads 
an anti-Golgotha party in the Bay State. Well, if other people 
may get up anti-slavery, anti-Masonic, and all other sorts of anti 
parties, we do not know why the general should not be permitted 
to get up an anti-Golgotha party. As usual, when a new enter- 
prise is started, the first business of the projectors is to magnify 
its importance. Thus the general magnifies the subject of his 
discourse in the very best terms of rhetoric he can command. 
And in the height of his wordy unhappiness demands to know if 
it be the command of God to make these States " a Golgotha." 
We certainly have no hesitation in promptly expressing our de- 
cided opinion that no such command has ever been issued. We 
claim some familiarity with the ' ' higher law, ' ' but we have 
never seen anything of this sort in our book of revelation. And 
we have no idea that we could have overlooked a command of 
this significance. We quote from the general : 

"To make of these now great and happy United States a Golgotha, a 
thing to shudder at and despise, like that awful beacon in the pathway of 
nations, the wretched negro empire of the Island of St. Domingo ! These 
the commands of God ? Away with the insane self-conceit and the pre- 
sumptuous impiety which cloaks its ignorance, folly, and passion under 
blasphemous pretence of being the miraculous recipient of the immediate 
command of the Most Hiffh !" 



1851] THE OOLGOTHIANS. 95 

But the general would evidently be indisposed to take our 
No for an answer. For he constantly assumes that those who 
are not out-and-out supporters of the Fugitive Slave law are 
Golgothians. This is the point of his discourse ; and upon this 
assumption he purposes to found his anti-Golgotha party. The 
movement is ingenious and adroit, and the general should have 
credit for it. It would be very awkward for him to meet his old 
party associates in any coming Presidential or other political con- 
test on old issues. But on the Golgotha question he can toe the 
mark and deal his blows, man fashion, and have nobody to twit 
him of having once been on the other side. 

It is not a little exciting to the sense of the ridiculous to wit- 
ness the zeal and inconsistency with which the general labors to 
enforce the general idea that the last and great band that holds 
our Union and Government together is the Fugitive Law of 
1850. These Union and compromise gentlemen are really get- 
ting to be " one idea" men of the very worst sort. They cling 
to the adjustment so convulsively, and hold it to their noses so 
closely, that they don't see nor acknowledge the existence of any- 
thing beyond. They make the fugitive law their meat and their 
drink. It is their cloud by night and their pillar of fire by day. 
It is their sole organ of political locomotion. It is the fin by 
which they scull about in dirty water, and the wings on which 
they ascend to the sublimest heights of blarney. No hen with 
one chicken, no woman with her first baby, was ever more con- 
spicuous in silly devotion, or fussy self-consequence. According 
to Mr. Cushing, it is the very last chain and anchor that holds 
the ship of State to her moorings, amid frightful surges that 
now dash their spray from stem to stern, and make every timber 
quiver, and every soul on board quake. But upon all such trash 
as this we have hitherto, on previous occasions, indulged in suffi- 
cient comment. If there are those who yet believe that the sal- 
vation of this Union and Government depends upon Northern 
dexterity in tripping up the heels of escaping negroes, they are 
past cure. We need not waste words upon them. 

One remark of the ex-minister, however, dropped in the 
heat of his dissertation, is so malapropos, considering the view 
he takes of the Fugitive Law, that we cannot help alluding to it. 
He makes an observation common to all good " Union men," 



96 LETTER FROM CHARLES A. DANA. [Aug. 

that it is the duty of every good man and good citizen to leave the 
subject of slavery where Washington, and Madison, and Jay, and 
Hamilton, and the framers of the Constitution left it. Now the 
first step toward doing this would be to repeal the Fugitive Law 
of 1850, wouldn't it ? For this is a heel-tap upon the foot of 
Slavery that modern cobblers have put on. To be consistent 
with himself, therefore, the general ought certainly to be advo- 
cating the repeal of the law instead of striving to head a party 
founded upon the principle of a rigid adherence to it. It is 
thus, after discharging the guns of his battery all about him, the 
general applies the match to his own magazine, and blows him- 
self sky-high. Let those look after his remains who feel a desire 
to erect a monument to his logical and political consistency. 
The Union Committee of Safety could not be better employed. 
They would, in so doing, follow at least one Scripture injunc- 
tion, " Let the dead bury their dead." 



New York, August 9, 1851. 

My Dear Pike : You will have to work hard to come up to the 
sublimity of fury I have just poured on the heads of our disgraceful 
compositors and proof-readers. They are fools and villains ! 

Your article was too long, and I cut it down. It was rather too 
hard upon little Vic, and I made it more polite. They have taken it 
and bedevilled it and tortured it and transmogrified it ! making non- 
sense of what was wit, and folly of what was wisdom. I always read 
the proof of all the editorial articles myself. Last night I went home 
at eleven, tired to death, leaving yours to he read by the proof-readers. 
And they murdered it ! 

Let us have that screed about the Presidents infuturo. Douglass has 
the best look just now on that side. Cass, Buchanan, R. I. Walker, 
Woodbury, Butler, and Houston are nowhere. Douglass is their 
strongest man. 

Do you know that Fillmore's chance is coming up ? Perhaps we'll 
have to take him. 

By the way, Greeley will be home in a month, when, if you go for 
buying in, the arrangement must be closed. I judged from our conver- 
sation the other day that you are rather disinclined upon the whole. 

Let's know. 

Yours faithfully, C. A. Dana. 



1851] LETTER FROM HON. TRUMAN SMITH. 97 

[From Hon. Truman Smith.] 

Litchfield, Ct., August 11, 1851. 
Hon. Pike : Returned from Lake Superior on Saturday, after an 
absence of near two months, and had hardly entered my peaceful abode 
before you run at me with your pike, under date of July 3d, for daring 
to be (as I am) for the Godlike as the next Whig candidate for the 
Presidency. Why should I not be ? Is he not a truly great man ! an 
orator, statesman, patriot, and author of the immortal letter to Hulse- 
man, using up and effectually demolishing the great Austrian despotism ? 
Is he not a native of New England, and by far the greatest man New 
England has ever produced ? But you seem to suppose it is question- 
able whether he can be elected, and disposed to throw yourself on 
some miserable expedient of availability ; to partake of some " hasty 
plate of soup," etc. But, my dear sir, I am determined hereafter 
to go for nothing but sterling merit, especially so long as I have not 
the slightest hope of electing any Whig. Besides, we shall derive one 
special advantage from presenting the name of the Godlike : we shall 
ascertain whether it " is a nomination fit to be made ;" if it succeeds, 
yea ; if not, nay ! Besides, I think it is a pity that so much yearn- 
ing after the salvation of our glorious Union — such a vast profusion of 
oratory poured out on all occasions in cars and steamboats, and in 
all sections of our vast country — north, south, east, and west — should be 
expended for nothing. In short, my excellent friend, I think we have 
a most excellent running Cabinet — all running for the Presidency ; old 
black D. a leetle ahead ; and I am decidedly in favor of his running 
into it, if he can ! ! 

Yours faithfully, " Uncle." 



[From Charles A. Dana.] 

New York, October 6, 1851. 

My Dear Pike : I blush with remorse at the distant date of your 
letter, to which I ought to have replied long since. My delay is, how- 
ever, not so culpable as it must appear. When your letter came I was 
off for a fortnight in Canada ; as soon as I got home Greeley was off for 
another fortnight, and I had no chance to speak with him about it, so 
that for at least a month of this intervening time I am as innocent as a 
child, and for the rest I have been driven with business. However, to 
the point. 

Greeley is not inclined to sell stock to one who will still be so much 



98 LETTER FROM CHARLES A. DANA. Oct. 1851 

an outsider as yourself. In fact, he is not anxious to sell at any rate, 
as you can conceive ; though if you were disposed to come regularly 
into the harness along with the rest, he would be glad of it, and would 
sell. So much for that. 

Now, we want you mightily to write for us from Washington during 
the session. The quantity of writing is to be left to your discretion 
and instincts. But you understand the nature of the work, and any 
details can be arranged hereafter. 

Also, whenever you have a word to say to the world in our editorial 
columns, send it on. I should urge you to write regularly, and propose 
a definite consideration, but for the terrific crowd of advertisements 
which makes it hard work to print half what we want to. But you 
have now and then a shot to fire whose effect the world can't afford to 
lose, and when the spirit is on you, don't refuse the impulse, but send 
me the document. 

I trust that my remissness has not caused you any inconvenience, or 
been laid to any cause but absence ; had I been at home the affair would 
have been decided on the next day. 

Yours most faithfully, Charles A. Dana. 

We are sure to be badly beaten in Pennsylvania, but the chance in 
this State is excellent. Scott stock is not so good now as it was. I 
hear talk of Bates of Missouri and John M e Lean. How well the Greer 
and Donaldson business has used up Houston ! It was a great go ; 
when I see you I'll tell you a bit of secret history. 



Jan. 1852] BANQUET TO KOSSUTH. 99 



1852. 



THE CONGRESSIONAL BANQUET KOSSUTH'S SPEECH — SPEECH OF MR. 

WEBSTER. 

[From the New York Tribune.] 

Washington, Thursday, January 8, 1852. 

The dinner is over and it was a great time. All the great 
men were there. Members of the Cabinet, Judges of the 
Supreme Court, Senators and Representatives without number. 

No other place but "Washington can furnish any such audi- 
ence. There was a room full of the picked men of twenty mil- 
lions. 

Two tables ran the entire length of the ladies' dining-hall at 
the National. The continuous line of one was broken at the cen- 
tre, and a platform there raised, whereon was a shorter table, at 
which sat four persons. At the right and left of this table sat 
Mr. Webster and Mr. Boyd, the Speaker of the House. Be- 
tween them sat Mr. King, President of the Senate, and the guest 
of the evening. 

The Magyar first. He was tastily dressed in velvet and 
looked well. The dinner over, toasts to the President, the 
Army and the Navy were given. Mr. Webster returned thanks 
to the first. Mr. Shields, after many ineffectual calls for Gener- 
al Scott, who, being in Richmond, could not well hear them, 
spoke in reply to the second. The Celt was ardent, and a little 
objected to in some quarters. 

Hungary was toasted, and the Magyar began. The room 
was still, and he spoke in distinct tones. But people accustomed 
to the sharp-edged and costive talk of American speakers 



100 WEBSTER AND DOUGLAS SPEAK. [Jan. 

would find it at first difficult , at any distance from the speaker, 
to understand the interfused utterance so common to foreigners 
from the continent, to which Kossuth's elocution is no excep- 
tion. A little familiarity with this peculiarity and a close atten- 
tion soon relieves the difficulty, however, while the slight for- 
eign accent became a source of attraction. 

A word of the orator's personal appearance. He is a little 
under size, perhaps five feet eight ; erect, of fine form and fig- 
ure, quick and elastic in movement, and of admirable and com- 
manding gesture. 

During the delivery of the speech all was close attention. 
"Webster rolled up his big eyes toward the speaker, with a face 
as emotionless as the Sphinx. That massive countenance, unsur- 
passed in dignity, in strength, remained unchanged. It soon 
transpired after Kossuth's conclusion that Webster was to fol- 
low. 

He did follow. His speech neither created a great sensation 
nor a great disappointment. It was dignified, pertinent, and 
characteristic. It was worthy of Mr. Webster. He deserves 
credit for saying so much as he did, and on the whole we must 
admit that, so far as we know, he has not shown himself regard- 
less of his position or his duties toward the guest of the nation. 
It is evident that there are eccentricities or cross-purposes in the 
Cabinet. Things do not go smooth somewhere. But, as mat- 
ters now stand, we are inclined to exonerate Mr. "Webster from 
the responsibility of the shabby position of the Executive Gov- 
ernment in regard to Kossuth. Perhaps we shall know some time 
what the difficulty is. 

After Mr. Webster came Douglas. He labored under great 
disadvantages. He was not, apparently, well prepared. He is 
a candidate for the Presidency. On the Kossuth question the 
West is one way and the South another. What view could he 
take ? It was enough to make a man cross-eyed to look at the 
subject under such circumstances. He did the best he could. 
But, while we have a good opinion of the Judge's ability on or- 
dinary occasions — knowing that he never ventures, in the Senate, 
upon the discussion of questions which he does not understand — 
we are yet constrained to say that on this occasion he was com- 
monplace and shallow. 



1852] THE SCRAMBLE OF THE CANDIDATES. 101 

General Cass followed Douglas. The General is a man not 
fully understood. We think he is a modest man. He seems to 
have a constant sense of the humbleness of his origin and to be 
thankful to the good Providence that has given him his elevation. 
Considering it as an almost universal habit for every old political 
stager to be constantly repining at the thought that he has not 
got more, instead of being thankful for what he has, this is a 
feather in General Cass's cap. The General spoke from an over- 
flowing heart and generous impulses. He gave the reins to his 
feelings. He avowed his willingness to take strong ground in 
the Senate on non-intervention, and was willing to abide the con- 
sequences. On this subject he ploughed the ground all out from 
under Douglas, and let him down out of sight. On interven- 
tion to prevent intervention he is ahead, out and out. So far as 
the great North-west is concerned on the Presidential question, 
it was a yacht America beat. Douglas must wet his sails, trim 
down his sheets, pray for a fresh gale, and try him again. 

During the delivery of both these speeches everbody was 
tumultuously hilarious. It had waxed late in the evening, the 
wine had flowed freely, and everybody was in the best of spirits. 
All through the delivery of both there was loud applause, laugh- 
ter, cheers, shouts, and burlesque approbation. When people 
who are candidates for the Presidency make speeches on such an 
occasion, they are necessarily the butt of all manner of joke and 
comment. Every thing was good-natured, however, and the 
two demonstrations added vastly to the piquancy of the even- 
ing's entertainment. 

Mr. Seward was at length loudly called for, and appeared on 
the stand, but a few fellows in one part of the hall, who hail 
from the clime of the sun, were so clamorous, and the most of 
the audience being on their feet, and by no means inclined to 
quiet at that hour, his remarks were nearly inaudible. He, 
however, went through with his brief speech. After he con- 
cluded, the President, Mr. King, and Kossuth retired, and left 
the audience that had become considerably thinned, to them- 
selves. 

As a finale, Cartter, of Ohio, took the floor. He had had a 
good time all the evening and now rollicked like a whale in deep 
water. Cartter is one of the most democratic of men. He be- 



102 CARTTER'S ROLLICKING SPEECH. [Jan. 

lieves in universal freedom and no hindrance to human develop- 
ment any way. He has that love of the largest liberty which 
will have no patience with oppression anywhere, and thinks as 
much of universal suffrage as of the trial by jury. The noise 
*w.as so great that nobody could hear him, but in obedience to the 
incessant cries of " Go on ! go on !" he kept talking for a con- 
siderable time. The burden of his speech, which 1 presume is 
not reported, was great admiration of the illustrious exile. He 
declared that while we had representatives and diplomatists from 
other nations and other lands, distinguished and undistinguished, 
we had none whose mission would compare for a moment in 
importance or dignity with that of the great Hungarian. For 
he was a minister, not of any petty State — not of any fraction 
of this world's inhabitants — not the representative of any im- 
perial despot on the earth ; but he was, over all and above all, 
the representative and plenipotentiary of the heart of humanity. 
He is the diplomatist and vicegerent of Almighty God, duly 
accredited to all nations, displaying credentials that bear the seal 
and sign manual of the Ruler of the Universe. This was the 
post Kossuth occupied, and we could not therefore honor him 
too much. 

On the whole, looking to the immediate effects of Kossuth's 
speech on the assembly, we think it fortunate that the influence 
of oratory is evanescent. Could a vote have been taken at its 
close, upon the question of our interfering against Russia to give 
Hungary " fair play " against Austria, the ayes would have had 
it by an overwhelming majority. J. S. P. 



WEBSTER VS. FILLMORE. 
[From the New York Tribune.] 

Washington, January 23, 18o2. 
As nobody feels interest enough in the " Compromise" 
measures to call them up in the Senate, Governor Davis's 
speech upon them is still held in abeyance. When they do 
come up, he will give them a broadside that will tell. There 
never was a more useless, mischievous, and, we may add, ridicu- 
lous move, than this reintroduction of this subject into the National 



1852] RENEWAL OF AGITATION. 103 

Legislature, excepting of course the original introduction and 
passage of the measures ; and this fact Governor Davis is bound 
to prove to a demonstration. He will make clear what has been 
often urged, that there is now no one of those measures that can 
be considered an open question, except the Fugitive Slave Law ; 
and that a reindorsement and reapproval of them now is nothing 
more and nothing less than an attempt to re-enact that law with 
all its odious features, all its repugnant and justice-defying pro- 
visions, and to declare that it shall for ever remain on the statute 
book in all its original and hateful deformity. It is an attempt 
to renewedly cram down the throats of the people of the Free 
States a law revolting to their natures, in direct conflict with 
their cherished principles and the requirements of conscientious 
duty — a law which they detest, have resisted, and which all the 
powers of heaven, of earth, or of hell can never make them ap- 
prove ; but which they nevertheless have made no effort to re- 
peal or modify, seeing the uselessness of the attempt, and in 
which they have been, and are disposed therefore to acquiesce. 
The whole proceeding is no better than firing upon an enemy 
after his colors are down. It has no other or better tendency 
than to stimulate to new and more embittered contests ; to ex- 
cite bitter and stinging resentments, to provoke fresh indignation, 
and arouse a more fierce and determined opposition. But this 
is slavery tactics. The drivers must use the lash, the brand, 
and the revolver in quick succession or they are not content. 
. It is quite in character that Foote should be engaged in this bus- 
iness, but that Mr. Clay or any other sensible man should have 
a hand in it, or in any way countenance it, is very strange. We 
see by the Alabama resolutions, lately introduced into the Sen- 
ate, what the notion of the slavery men is in regard to action 
and reaction upon this subject. They expect Congress to 
reaffirm that the slavery question in this government is closed, 
finally settled, and that the Free States shall cease to debate, 
to agitate, or to allude to it in Congress. They demand it 
to be considered that the Compromise has boxed it up and 
hooped it down and stowed it away, there to forever he among 
forgotten rubbish. "Well, all this is reasonable for them. Just 
as sensible as it would be to declare by joint resolution that the 
mercury should never go above the freezing-point again ; that 



104 WEBSTER AND FILLMORE RIVALRY. [Jan. 

as we have at last got it down to zero in "Washington, we are de- 
termined to keep it there. 

There is a great commotion between Mr. Webster and his 
friends and Mr. Fillmore and his friends, in relation to the recent 
determination of the President not to withdraw from the can- 
vass. You will see in the papers all manner of contradictory 
accounts on this point, and from sources that are usually well 
informed. But when every thing uncertain is brushed away, 
the naked fact will remain and be plainly visible, that Mr. Fill- 
more is in the field, and of course against Mr. Webster ; for the 
strength of both, so far as they have strength, consists in their 
position on the Compromise question. They stand on the same 
platform and are covered by the same canopy. They occupy 
the same tent, drink out of the same cup, and toast their feet by 
the same fire. When they move, they go in the same dugout, 
fashioned by their joint labors, and in which they have an equal 
interest and partnership. They drift on the same stream, ap- 
proach the same rapids, and, we fear, will go over the same dam. 
That they may not come to such an untoward end, however, it is 
our bounden duty to pray. But if the probabilities are strong 
of such a calamity, as we think they are, it would not seem to 
be worth a quarrel for the privilege of making such a voyage, 
either alone or in company. We hope, at least, there will be 
none, for it may result in an upset that might drown innocent 
parties. 

The great error that has been made in the vaticinations of 
interested parties upon the subject of the candidacy, so far as 
Mr. Webster and Mr. Fillmore are concerned, has arisen from a 
mistaken estimate of Mr. Fillmore's position and character. 
New York politicians, though the most respectable class of gen- 
tlemen in the world, have some peculiar characteristics. They 
very often seemingly assent to propositions that they never had 
the faintest intention of taking even into consideration, and if 
other gentlemen see fit to draw gratuitous and unfounded infer- 
ences from their quiet and deferential manner, and their perfect 
urbanity and politeness, who is to blame ? And if one of them 
should express a desire, or an intention even, to do a thing, it 
by no means follows that he will do it. The very generosity of 
his nature and his yielding temper prompt him to defer the ex- 



1852] GIVE EACH CANDIDATE A CHANCE. 105 

edition of his own wishes, if by so doing it will gratify his 
friends. Another thing is equally true. New York politicians 
love the tranquillity and the infinite possibilities of a position of 
negation ; and they do not like to do any thing unless it is clearly 
for their interest to do it. Surely no one will blame them for 
this. And the failure to recognize this latter peculiarity of this 
very discreet class of gentlemen has occasioned erroneous judg- 
ments in very intelligent quarters (to say nothing of losses of 
imbibing compounds) as to Mr. Fillmore's withdrawal. "Why 
should Mr. Fillmore withdraw ? This is a question which has 
not been sufficiently considered. Mr. Webster's wishes have 
been suggested, but does such a consideration pay ? Let there 
be no hasty complaints, then, by Mr. Webster or his friends, 
because Mr. Fillmore is a candidate. This is a free country, 
why should not all men be candidates for the Presidency who 
desire to be ? The great men must not think to absorb all the 
honors. Let each have a chance. We shall deeply lament to 
see any ill blood displayed on account of the denouement of 
which we are speaking ; and most of all do we deprecate all alle- 
gations that the President has backed and filled, or contradicted 
himself on the question. If gentlemen have prophesied falsely, 
or lost champagne, or done any other foolish thing touching this 
momentous topic, let them possess their souls in patience, and 
not launch vain anathemas upon the head of the Administration. 
We certainly, in all sincerity, think he has consulted the true in- 
terest of the Whig party in not withdrawing, and we are quite 
rejoiced, therefore, that he has not suffered himself to lose his 
chances by being crowded off the course. J. S. P. 



JOHN DAVIS S SPEECH. 
[From the New York Tribune.] 

Washington, January 28, 1852. 
The present position of Mr. Webster and Mr. Fillmore as can- 
didates for the Presidency grows daily more and more anomalous 
to the public apprehension. It would seem to necessitate the re- 
construction of the Cabinet. The Secretary has all along expected 
to have the Administration field to himself, and to find now that 



106 SPEECH OF SENATOR DAVIS. [Jan. 

he is allowed but a very email " patch" of it, is excessively pro- 
voking. And it is impossible that so much poignant chagrin as 
is felt should be altogether suppressed. And it is not. So that 
it cannot be long, if there is no change in the position of the 
candidates, before it will burst out in open crimination. Men 
of strong passions, with cross purposes, and keen personal aims 
cannot meet in daily intercourse and be always amiable and 
polite and confiding. This is more difficult than 

"To smile and smile and be a villain." 

The lines of the President and Secretary, who are both bobbing 
for the same big trout, will inevitably tangle. So long as they 
run side by side on the same course they will jostle, interlock 
their wheels, crowd, and perhaps jockey. We see numerous 
signs of this already. Such a state of things cannot last and 
good nature continue to prevail. Collisions will be followed by 
contusions. 

Governor Davis made his speech to-day on the Compromise 
resolutions. He gave the truth, and the whole truth, in relation 
to this subject in a masterly manner. His words were few but 
massive. His logic is always impregnable, and his statements 
are demonstrations. There is no man in the Senate who is reck- 
oned to be so pre-eminently sensible as John Davis. His large, 
roundabout, hard sense, his clear, strong, and masculine under- 
standing always bring him to wise conclusions. If his speech 
of to-day, so far as it related to the Compromise, could have 
been delivered by Mr. Webster, it would be set down as one of 
those ponderous and self-evident statements of absolute truth 
that admitted of no further question or debate. Governor Davis 
entered briefly upon the consideration of the mischiefs which 
have resulted from the agitation of the compromisers, and were 
now resulting from their continued agitation, by showing that 
they tended directly to the neglect of the great material interests 
of the country. In this connection and in allusion to California 
he took occasion to quote from the standard authorities — namely. 
Blackwood' 's Magazine and the New York Tribune. 

J. S. P. 



1852] LETTER FROM PHILIP GREELT, COLLECTOR. 107 

Custom House, Boston, ) 

Collector's Office, January 30, 1852. ) 

Honorable Pike : . . . We have nothing new here. The indica- 
tions are that the Freesoilers and Democrats will make a permanent coali- 
tion ; but if we nominate General Scott we can break them up, and get 
one half of the Freesoil party, which would give the Whigs twenty 
thousand majority in the Commonwealth. 

Uncle Dan's friends are very quiet. The position of " Philip 
Moore" troubles them, and they do not seem to know just what to do. 

I am glad things are as they are, for it is better for us than though 
it was otherwise. 

The nomination in Maine is a good card for us, but not to be talked 
about or boasted of just yet. 

I think things are working kindly and well, but you must keep at 
work on the South, and declare that no " protestations" or letters are 
to be made or written. Write often. 

Ever yours, P. G. , Jr. 



THE COMPROMISE AND THE PRESIDENCY. 
[From the New York Tribune. 1 

Washington, February 2, 1852. 

The Fugitive Slave Law is in the way of electing a Whig 
President. 

People talk about the " Compromise measures," and so con- 
fuse men's minds about a thing which in itself is very simple and 
plain. Five acts were brought under this head and passed — to 
wit : 1st, An act for the admission of California. 2d. An act 
establishing territorial governments for our acquisitions from 
Mexico. 3d. An act for the settlement of the Texas boundary. 
4th. An act abolishing the slave-trade in the District of Colum- 
bia. 5th. An act for returning fugitive slaves. 

Two of these acts are not open to legislative action. We can- 
not turn California out of the Union, and we cannot legislate ten 
millions of money out of the breeches pocket of Texas into our 
own. In the first place she couldn't pay it if she would, and in 
the second, she wouldn't if she could. 

A third act is one for establishing territorial governments for 
New Mexico and Utah. This was passed without the " Proviso, ' ' 



108 THE FUGITIVE SLA VE LA W. [Feb. 

and was really the only act upon which any great controversy 
was waged. In this the South had its own way. It is a most 
suggestive and provoking subject for comment, but we withstand 
the temptation and remain silent. The question in regard to it 
has been dropped for two reasons : first, because the Fugitive 
Slave Law so excited the resentment of the North that it quite 
forgot the " Proviso" for the period immediately following the 
passage of the measures ; and, second, because the conviction 
has grown general that slavery will not go into New Mexico and 
Utah. Thus acquiescence in this act prevails even in those 
quarters where the stoutest determination to uphold and adhere 
to the " Proviso" existed. 

A fourth act is the one abolishing the slave-trade in the Dis- 
trict, for which nobody now cares, and nobody ever did care. 
It is a small act upon a small subject, answering a very small 
purpose. 

And thus it is that the Fugitive Slave Law, the fifth and last 
of the series, and that alone, really survives, and has an active 
existence of all the much bruited "Compromise measures." 
Governor Davis, in his late speech in the Senate, demonstrated 
this fact at length in a most conclusive manner. Hence it is we 
make the declaration that this law is the only thing in the way 
of electing a Whig President. 

Why it is so is plain enough, as we will show. The South- 
ern Whigs, ever since the passage of the Compromise measures, 
have been fighting their battles on that platform. Their news- 
papers, members of the State legislatures, members of Congress,, 
stump speakers in general, have all planted themselves upon 
these measures. They have given them their out and out sup- 
port through thick and thin. They have sustained them as the 
leading measures of a Whig Administration, and by them they 
have elected to stand or fall. 

Here arises the difficulty. The Compromise measures, as we 
have seen, being resolved into the Fugitive Slave Law, and the 
Whig party of the Southern States having planted itself thereon 
(and not having yet recovered from the heats of the recent con- 
tests on the slavery question), it deems itself under the neces- 
sity of fighting the Presidential battle on the same issue ; and 
imagines that no candidate will serve the purpose of uniting and 



1852] NORTHERN AND SOUTHERN WHIGS. 109 

carrying the party, unless he makes protestation in advance that 
he is a " Compromise" man, which means, in other words, that 
he is a firm supporter of the existing Fugitive Slave Law. 

Now so long as the Southern Whigs hold on to this convic- 
tion, just so long there can be no union of Northern and South- 
ern Whigs on a Presidential candidate ; and of course, considering 
the political complexion of the House, there can be no election 
of a Whig President. And thus it comes that the Fugitive 
Slave Law stands in the way of that result. 

It is well known that the Northern Whigs, as well as all par- 
ties at the North, entertain a great repugnance to the provisions 
of the Fugitive Slave law. Any law for returning runaway 
negroes would be distasteful enough, but the existing law is 
especially and justly odious. For this reason, no Whig Presi- 
dential candidate could hope to carry a single Northern State, if 
he were to run as a special advocate and supporter of that law ; 
in a word, and softly speaking, if he were to run as a " Compro- 
mise" candidate. 

But there is no reasonable doubt of the ability of General 
Scott to carry every Northern State that went for General Tay- 
lor, with the addition of Ohio into the bargain, if he were run 
without reference to this issue. Such is the conviction of the 
best informed men from all those States. All that is wanted to 
insure a moral certainty of his election, therefore, is the support 
of the Southern Whig States. 

And so it becomes a question solely for Southern Whigs to de- 
cide whether or not we shall have a Whig President at the next 
election. If they insist upon incorporating such a new and ridicu- 
lous test into the code of the Whig party as (not adherence to 
the Constitution, not assent to a proper Fugitive Slave Law 
even), the support of a certain specific, existing, defective, re- 
pulsive law, then it is inevitable that the Whig party is sundered 
and defeated. And what is worse than that, it is equally inevit- 
able that a great sectional party will rise upon its ruins. And 
so, on the contrary, if the Whig party North and South will 
consent to discard all such temporary issues as the one alluded 
to, and will rally to the support of General Scott as they did to 
the support of General Taylor, standing upon their ancient and 
well-known doctrines and the well-established character of their 



110 PRUDENCE AND MODERATION DEMANDED. [Feb. 

candidate, then will they preserve the unity and the nationality 
of the party ; and if they cannot, by reason of the composition 
of Congress, shape the policy of the country on domestic ques- 
tions, they will at least hold the reins as to the foreign policy 
of the Government, and act as a certain check to all vicious 
legislation and preserve a pure administration of our national 
affairs. 

This state of the case is no less novel than it is true. Here 
is the fate of a great party, and by consequence, perhaps the fate 
of a nation, hanging upon the provisions of a law, run through 
Congress as one might leap a horse over a ditch, at a single 
bound, without thought and without examination. The Fugitive 
Slave Law was never discussed and never made a matter of any 
special account in all the discussions of the time. It was not a 
principal or a conspicuous flower even in that admired bouquet 
prepared by Messrs. Foote, Clay & Co. for presentation to the 
country, whose soporific odors were to compose all the nervous 
ails of the nation. It was simply a green sprig tucked in be- 
hind to give variety and relief to its general appearance. It was 
merely a little thread thrown into the shopkeeper's bundle to 
make up the stuffs therein contained. And as quack doctors and 
patent-medicine venders, in forming their villainous compounds, 
put in a little of this and a little of that herb, sweet flag, yellow 
dock, dandelion, thistle flower, and other harmless ingredients, 
to give an imposing air of potency to the all-healing sassafras, or 
other staple of their medicine, so in this case was the Fugitive 
Slave Law sprinkled into the Compromise mess ; of which the 
whole body and soul was the law establishing the territorial gov- 
ernments without the Wilmot Proviso. 

The Fugitive Law received absolutely no consideration and no 
examination, and was not debated or hardly alluded to in the 
final passage of the series of measures at last borne on a rushing 
torrent through Congress. 

Pascal somewhere remarks that if Cleopatra's nose had been 
shorter, the fate of the world might have been changed. Should 
it so turn out that this law, in consequence of a few overlooked, 
wicked provisions, maliciously, and almost stealthily inserted, 
should be the cause of the untoward results we have already 
hinted at, it would only be another added to the catalogue of the 



1852] LETTER FROM EDITOR OF KENNEBEC JOURNAL. Ill 

instances in which small and unsuspected causes have produced 
great results in the world's history, from the fall of Troy down- 
ward. 

But we have faith to believe that the Whigs of the South will, 
in good time, see and acknowledge the impossibility that the 
"Whig party can run a Presidential candidate, on the narrow issue 
of adherence to the letter of the Fugitive Slave Law, and cease 
to intimate that such a course is essential to success in the South. 
We shall be slow to believe that any Gordian knot attaches the 
Whig party to any such chariot as this. But if it be so, we are 
ready for the sword of any political Alexander which shall cut it. 

J. S. P. 



[From the Editor of the Kennebec Journal.] 

Augusta, February 2, 1852. 

Friend Pike : Yours of 22d was duly received. In regard to cor- 
respondence, if you cannot furnish us I hardly know of any other person 
who would satisfy me. Still, if you can engage some one who will 
write a good letter once a week, or once even in two weeks, for reasonable 
pay, I should like to hear from him. We should not be willing to pay 
the highest rates. If you engage any one, please say to him to write so 
as to have his letter arrive here on Monday evening, and tell him to let 
us know his terms with his first letter. We don't want any second or 
third rate letters. 

There is another matter which I should like to have you attend to 
for us ; that is, the advertising. We ought to have the laws to publish 
this session, our circulation being about double that of the Bangor 
Whig, which had them last session. Perhaps Mr. Webster, however, 
would not give them to us, although you might try. But the Post-Office 
advertisement for proposals to carry the mails (and that of the mail 
routes) will be published in the spring, I suppose, and if you will take a 
little pains for us, now or soon, to obtain an order for its publication, 
we will cheerfully make it worth your while. There is also advertising 
in the Navy and War Departments, and some others, as well as in the 
Post-Office, which we ought to have. Maine Whigs get but very little 
patronage, when their party is in power, not half so much as the Locos 
get from their friends. 

Yours in haste, Wm. H. Wheeler. 



112 LETTERS FROM CHARLES A. DANA. [Feb. 

[From Charles A. Dana.] 

New York, February 9. 

Keenest of Pikes : What a desert void of news you keep at 
Washington ! For goodness' sake kick up a row of some sort. Fight 
a duel, defraud the treasury, set fire to the fulling-mill, get Black Dan 
drunk, or commit some other excess that will make a stir. 

Your Irish friend Ewing despaired and sent for his unprinted and 
unpublished disquisition. I sent it back. 

See here, old fellow, what's the use of telling the truth about the 
Southern Whigs ? If you have a fault, it seems to me it is a disposition 
to tell the truth. Correct it for the sake of your own prospects in life. 

Yours ever, Dana. 



Custom-House, Boston, } 

Collector's Office, February 16, 1852. ) 

Honorable Pike : Yours of the 11th was noticed on Saturday. I 
told you then what I had done with Draper, etc. To-day I have a letter 
from him, which I inclose herein, that you may read and understand it, 
and then return it to me. He inclines to back out from what we supposed 
he had agreed to do, on the ground that old Busco does not want the 
services of our boys in New York, and is in the hands of Prof. Davies 
and others who are their enemies. This matter ought to be looked after 
and arranged immediately, and you must confer with Warren about it. 
We can hardly afford to lose the " aid and comfoit" of Draper & Com- 
pany in the next campaign. 

Let me hear from you. 

In haste, yours truly, P. G., Jr. 



[From Charles A. Dana.] 

New York, February 19, 1852. 
My Dear Pike : I have just received yours of Tuesday, and reply 
on the moment. We would not on any account wish to lose your con- 
tributions, for, as you know, we esteem them highly. Nor would we 
wish you to write without pay. It is true you have your pleasure in it, 
and that you advance the views and ideas you want to have advanced, 
but that fact only gives life to your letters and renders them more load- 
able and valuable. Besides, the Tribune is a big and a money-making 
concern which can well afford to pay, and in any view ought to pay for 



1852] MORE COMPROMISE BESOLUTIONS. 113 

the services of those who add value to its columns. On the other hand, 
you don't need to work for your living, and don't want to feel that if 
any little failure to report a piece of news occurs an employer will be 
down on your negligence. Why not, then, have things fixed exactly to 
your mind ? 

Suppose that from and after this week we hold you only to the dis- 
patching of such intelligence as may come in your way and as mere 
good-fellowship would at any rate make you send us. You shall write 
when you please, and what you please ; and we will either pay for it at 
the end, on a sort of general average and amiable agreement, or you 
shall have a regular salary sufficiently small for you not to feel it. 

Now as to the other point. We want a man at Washington to get 
the news. Not to write prosy vacuities like some, or to make himself 
notorious and absurd like others. But a shrewd, sharp, inventive, omni- 
present fellow. You know just what we need. Can you hunt him up 
for us ? It will be a great thing if you do, and will save Snow or me the 
bother of a trip to Washington, where we should after all not be so 
likely to succeed as you. 

Yours ever truly, C. A. Dana. 



THE COMPROMISE MEASURES. MR. FOOTE, BUCHANAN, AND DOUGLAS. 

[From the New York Tribune.] 

Washington, Tuesday, February 17, 1852. 
The delay occasioned by the protracted voting upon the Mile- 
age yesterday prevented the introduction of a resolution by a 
member from Kentucky, who designed to offer one similar to the 
one now before the Senate, indorsing the compromise. If such a 
resolution could be brought to a direct vote, it would undoubt- 
edly be laid on the table by a large majority. But it is not un- 
likely that it would be used as the Senate resolution is used, 
merely as a peg upon which to hang innumerable speeches. 
Why any member should desire to follow the footsteps of the 
restless Mississippi Senator in the introduction of such a resolu- 
tion, except it be for purposes of mischief, or for his own per- 
sonal advantage, we are unable to conjecture. It cannot be for 
want of a subject upon which to make harangues for buncombe, 
for in the House such occasions are easily found. It is not be- 
cause there is in any cpuarter the smallest modicum of a belief 



114 FOOTE DISTURBS THE WATERS. [Feb. 

that any earthly public good can come of such a resolution. The 
cause of such a movement cannot be sought, we fear, in the pri- 
vate interests and purposes of the individual. Such was the fact 
in Foote's case, who desired to fortify his political position at 
home by an act of Congress, propping the platform upon which 
he has been fighting his battles with the States' Rights party of 
his own State. In his critical position it was almost a matter of 
life and death with him to bring his party to a vote on the ques- 
tion. And his failure to do it has probably sealed his fate in 
Mississippi. 

It is not unlikely, however, that he has gone, anyway, but 
without the help of this life-boat it is quite certain he is to be en- 
gulfed. There seems to be little or no chance that the Compro- 
mise party of Mississippi will ever win another victory under 
their present volatile and impolitic leader. The next battle will 
be an Austerlitz victory to the States' Rights party. Such at 
least is the confident expectation of those who are most interested 
and best informed upon the subject. The consequence will be 
that Mr. Foote will be left at home. Now, who would wish to 
disturb so fair a prospect as this ? "Who should desire to let 
down any ladder upon which Foote could again climb back to 
the Senate ? Foote reached the summit level of his career on 
the compromise measures. Mr. Clay tended the locks, and let 
on the water. He was carried up to the highest point, but has 
been let down again. Like a child at its first dance, he now 
wishes to " do it again." And all this ado in the Senate about 
the re-enactment of the compromise measures had its origin in 
no more noble or elevated purpose than to canal Foote over a 
difficult place into the Senate again. Before his return hence to 
Mississippi he begged Senators to come to a vote on his darling- 
project. He considered it the ark of his political salvation. He 
considers it so now. But the floods have come until he is sur- 
rounded by the rising waters, and but the faintest hope of escape 
remains. 

This is, to be sure, a most undignified consideration to prompt 
the reopening, discussion, and agitation of a subject upon which 
the country desires repose. But as it is here represented so it is 
in fact. This explanation affords a clue to the indifference felt 
in the Senate to the fate of the resolution in question. Mr. Bad- 



1852] CANDIDATES OF THE DEMOCRATS. 115 

ger has the floor upon it, and he allows the subject to be post- 
poned at anybody's request for any sort of an object. He says 
he don't care whether he speaks upon the subject at this session 
or the next ! Yet he is counted one of its friends, and will vote 
for it if the question should ever come to a vote. It is to be 
hoped that before another resolution day comes round the idea of 
introducing this mischievous topic into the House will be aban- 
doned, at least on the part of the Whigs. 

The stately and smooth-faced bachelor of Pennsylvania, 
Hon. James Buchanan, is here. His neck was never stiffer, nor 
his neck- cloth whiter, nor his smile more bland than now. But 
the number of "Democratic" candidates is so great that no one 
absorbs the universal party admiration. In this respect General 
Scott is more fortunate. Nobody ever had half so many friends 
as he has now. His life is a perpetual bow. Never was his 
courtly manners and gracious demeanor more thoroughly taxed ; 
but he bears his martyrdom like a saint. 

The little Judge (Douglas) has got to be a very nimble com- 
petitor among the locofoco aspirants. What with his Irish 
organs, his Democratic reviews, and an armful of other strings, 
each industriously pulled, he makes a formidable show. But we 
predict he is overdoing the matter. Vaulting ambition o'erleaps 
itself and falls on t'other side. But perhaps the little Judge 
never read Shakespeare, and don't think of this. Yet to-day 
there are signs of wavering in his ranks. The late leading 
article in the Democratic Review on the Presidency of 1852 hav- 
ing given mortal offence in various quarters unfriendly to the 
Judge's pretensions, and thus done him essential damage, it is 
now asserted by his friends that the article was a ruse of the 
enemy, for the especial purpose of hurting the prospects of the 
small giant. This is a far-fetched explanation of that elaborate 
paper, but it is doubtful if it will go down. It is alleged that 
the proof-sheets have been found in the possession of a gentle- 
man in this city of known hostility to the Judge. This at least 
is made clear, that the motions of the under- currents among the 
various locofoco candidates are very brisk and conflicting. 

J. S. P. 



116 MR. SEWARD AS AN ORATOR. [March 

seward's speech. 

[From the New York Tribune.] 

Washington, Wednesday, March 10, 1852. 

Mr. Seward made his speecli on Intervention yesterday. It 
occupied two hours in the delivery, and is the great speech of 
the session thus far. It was throughout a piece of bold, power- 
ful, and unanswerable argumentation, spiced with many hard 
hits, and closing in a tone of lofty eloquence that delighted and 
inspired every hearer. Though earnest, thorough, and direct in 
purpose and manner, and eminently compact, forcible, and ele- 
gant in his language, Mr. Seward is nevertheless not an orator 
who attracts crowds to hear him. The power and effect of his 
speeches exist in the matter they contain, rather than in the tran- 
sient merits and influence of a striking elocution ; and, whatever 
else may be said, he enjoys this great distinction. Though com- 
ing into the Senate at a time when Mr. Clay and Mr. Webster 
were both members of that body, he has yet made the greatest 
speeches of any man in the Senate chamber since he became a 
member. There were numerous and powerful efforts made upon 
the celebrated Omnibus Bill, and upon that measure Mr. Clay 
and Mr. Webster both roused themselves and did their best. 
But impartial criticism must declare that the speech of Mr. 
Seward on that subject was marked by more breadth of view, 
more vigor of thought, and a more profound and masterly treat- 
ment of his subject, than was displayed by either of those gentle- 
men. His speech on the French spoliation claims was another 
effort of signal ability, never equalled by any other on the same 
subject. 

In expressing this judgment we shall not of course be under- 
stood as intimating any belief of Mr. Seward's mental superiority 
to these two great men. By no means. We intend to institute 
no comparison between the men, but simply speak of their sev- 
eral efforts upon a common topic. These are far more easily 
judged and measured than is the precise relative position of the 
individuals on the general scale of eminence, a question upon 
which we have no design to enter. Eelative greatness of men is 
one of those topics upon which there is a vast deal of superficial 
judgment. No subject is more intricate, or requires more nice 
discrimination to arrive at any accuracy of determination. There 



1853] LETTER FROM P. GREELT, JR. 11? 

is no more difficult task than accurately to weigh public men, 
and all comparisons between them are usually filled with igno- 
rance and absurdity. But of any specific mental efforts of a 
man, one may be allowed to judge and to speak with comparative 
confidence. We feel no hesitation in doing it in regard to the 
several speeches of Mr. Clay, Mr. Webster, and Mr. Seward on 
the "Omnibus" or Compromise measures. And we think it 
admits of no question, that of these three leading speeches, Mr. 
Seward's was decidedly the ablest. 



Custom-House, Boston, ) 

Collector's Office, March 1, 1852. ) 

Dear Pike : I received your letter some days ago, telling me of 
your interview with Cerro Gordo, Esq., and that you had shown him 
Simeon's letter, with all of which I find no fault. 

I also sent your letter to Simeon for his perusal, who writes to me 
that he is not sorry his letter performed the service it did, so that we 
seem to he satisfied all round. Simeon writes to me that if General 
Scott expects to get the Whig strength he must not deal with men so 
utterly selfish as some who fawn beneath his shadow. 

I have nothing of special interest to communicate from this quarter, 
excepting that the Webster folks seem to be quite encouraged by the 
New York movements. They are also quite savage towards those here 
who are not Webster men, and have made a dirty attack upon Mr. 
Hudson and myself and the Boston Custom-House in last Saturday's 
Bee. I suppose you can see the paper, if you wish to, at some of the 
hotels. They take it at the National, and also at Willard's, I believe. 

It is high time for you to begin to arrange and concentrate for the 
convention. It should be called soon, and every other needful thing 
should be done. 

Truly yours, P. G., Jr. 



DOUGLAS AND CASS. 
[From the New York Tribune.] 

Washington, March 13, 1852. 
The Congress mill goes day by day. Every man's grist is 
ground out in turn. All sorts of grain is turned into the hop- 
per, and of course all sorts of meal comes through the spout. 



118 THE DAILY CONGRESSIONAL GRIST. [March 

The Globe is tlie bag in which it is daily brought away. Whoso 
would know just how much is ground and what it is like, let him 
read The Daily Globe. It is impossible for a single inspection 
here to brand half the samples. We can only characterize the 
general run as ' ' middlings, ' ' and as no trouble is taken by the 
owners to " bolt " the grist, there is small provocation to exam- 
ine the parcels. Let them go. The fodder is considered good 
enough for the constituencies at home, and one need hardly play 
the connoisseur over it here. 

The most important business of the locofoco side of the 
House latterly has been to consider the solemn subject of the 
Presidency. Several gentlemen have been deeply exercised on 
that topic, and of the candidates on the anxious seat, it is thought, 
Douglas has lately obtained a hope. After Marshall's speech on 
Thursday the Judge seemed to be in a great tickle. What 
most surprises one is that these Congressmen, with beards and 
without ; that verdant, flippant, smart detachment of Young 
America that has got into the House, propose to make a candi- 
date for the Baltimore Convention without consulting their 
masters, the people. With a few lively fellows in Congress, and 
the aid of The Democratic Review, they fancy themselves equal 
to the achievement of a small job like this. Well, gentlemen, go 
ahead. The world always succumbs to impudence and intrepid- 
ity. To be sure, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Hamp- 
shire, Louisiana, Indiana, Kentucky, and we do not know how 
many other States, have pronounced in favor of some other can- 
didate than yours, while we believe none have come out for him 
but Illinois ; still this is nothing. All that is wanting is to 
bring the recusants over, kill off the fogies, and then set sail be- 
fore the wind. Who can doubt that the little giant and his 
crew are tlie chaps that can do this ? Men who are willing to 
come and pay five dollars a day for mule hire, and treat the 
voters at the rate of fifty cents a " drink," are coadjutors to be 
esteemed, and adversaries to be feared. If the little Judge gets 
the whole of these on his side, it is all day with the fogies. 
Query ? Is General Cass a fogy ? Are the supporters of Gen- 
eral Cass fogies ? This is a vital question. On it hinges the 
issue of the Baltimore nomination, the fate of Young America, 
and the destinies of a whole boat-load of politicians. 



1852] LETTER FROM P. OREELT, JR. 119 

It is said that Douglas dodged the vote on the resolution to 
pay Kossuth's expenses, but we can hardly believe it, simply be- 
cause it did not seem necessary. On any question that has two 
sides to it, particulary a Northern and Southern side, it would be 
allowable for him to dodge a vote. Indeed we are clearly of 
opinion that candidates for the Presidency ought to be exempted 
from voting altogether. A Presidential candidate ought to be 
allowed to please everybody, and how can he do that if he votes 
against anybody ? J. S. P. 



Custom-House, Boston, ) 

Collector's Office, March 19, 1852. ) 

My Dear Pike : Yours of the 13th inst. was duly received, and 
contents noticed with interest. 

I quite agree with you that we need not trouble ourselves further as 
to the "favorite son" of the old Bay State. To all appearances we 
must nominate either Mr. Fillmore or General Scott, and the great 
inquiry should be, Which of them will get the votes needed to keep the 
Whig party in power ? 

With the best feelings towards Mr. Fillmore, those of us who do the 
work here (many of whom would really prefer Mr. F. to anybody else, if 
he could be sure of getting votes) are of the opinion that the contest 
may as well be abandoned before it is commenced unless we nominate 
General Scott. 

We believe also that pains should be taken to produce this impres- 
sion everywhere, or rather that the people of the South as well as of the 
North should be made acquainted with the actual facts in the case ; and 
you ought to organize immediately and thoroughly to this end. . . . 

I send you a slip giving the action of our Whig Legislative Conven- 
tion last night. You will notice that we re-elected the old State Com- 
mittee — which is almost entirely for Scott — and that we did not say 
any thing about Uncle Dan, while, on the contrary, we voted unani- 
mously to support the nominees of the National Convention. 

This is good news from a section of country where other things 
were feared. 

In haste, truly yours, P. Greely, Jr. 



120 GENERAL SCOTT'S POSITION. [March 

GENERAL SCOTT AND THE COMPROMISE. 
[From ne Neto York Tribune.] 

"Washington, March 20, 1852. 
The report from Washington, published in one or more of the 
New York papers of Wednesday last, stating that General Scott 
was upon the point of writing a letter approving the compromise, 
and which some of his frrends were verdant enough to suppose 
had some truth in it, is without the shadow of foundation. It 
is of a piece with the strange, startling, extraordinary announce- 
ments we often see made for the use and consumption of open- 
mouthed gullibility. And the report is not only untrue now, but 
it will be untrue to the end, howsoever often it may be revived. 
If General Scott cannot be elected without letters, without 
pledges, " without protestations," then he will not be elected at 
all. The friends of General Scott, and the enemies of General 
Scott, may as well set their hearts at rest on this point. If a pub- 
lic life of forty years has not been sufficient to establish him in 
the confidence of his countrymen, he cannot now secure that con- 
fidence by covering a half sheet or a whole sheet of foolscap with 
" protestations," to be published on the eve of an election, for 
the purpose of aiding his own personal advancement. And no 
man is more thoroughly imbued with this sentiment than Gen- 
eral Scott himself. He will, therefore, attempt no folly of the 
sort. If he cannot stand on his services, his character, his long 
public life, he cannot stand at all. If these are not sufficient to 
command the suprjort of his fellow-citizens, a sheet of foolscap 
won't save him. He stands out on the record of his country's 
history as one of the most prominent and distinguished men of 
his day. By that record he must abide. By his past history 
must he be judged. By that it must be determined whether or 
not his is a nomination "fit to be made." J. S. P. 



MR. FILLMORE S CHANCE FOR THE PRESIDENCY. 
[From the New York Tribune.] 

Washington, March 27, 1852. 
The recent elaborate editorial expositions of The Tribune and 
Times upon Presidental matters in general, and the position of 



1852] CLAY ON FILLMORE. 121 

Mr. Fillmore in particular, have been read here with attention, and 
generally received with satisfaction. As yet, nobody is inclined 
to dispute that Mr. Fillmore is an excellent candidate for the Pres- 
idency. We have Mr. Clay's word for it, and are therefore dis- 
posed to take it for granted, albeit we are a little suspicious of 
the grounds of Mr. Clay's preference. He says that Mr. Fill- 
more has been tried, and having been found a good man, there- 
fore we had better. take him again. If we were any way inclined 
to be difficult, or to question the wisdom of Mr. Clay's recom- 
mendation, we might venture timidly to inquire through how 
many Presidential terms this recommendation is to apply. Mr. 
Fillmore is about fifty, and possessing as he does a hale and vigor- 
ous constitution, he Avill be as good at seventy as at fifty. We must 
ask, therefore, before yielding our unqualified assent to Mr. 
Clay's doctrine of superior fitness, on the ground that he has 
been tried, what is to be its limit ? Mr. Clay has long held to 
the one-term doctrine. He has here abandoned it. What is his 
position now ? Is he in favor of two terms, three terms, four 
terms, or how many ? Mr. Fillmore has been tried, and is found 
fit, therefore we will take him again. Won't the argument be 
as good four years hence as now ? Eight years, twelve years ? 
Why not ? 

Again : Mr. Clay says Mr. Webster and General Scott will 
not do, because they have not been tried. The same argument 
appears here in another shape. Is this sound doctrine ? How is 
it with Mr. Clay himself ? Wouldn't he have made a good 
President ? But was he ever tried ? What would he have 
thought of this argument if it had ever been applied to him ? 
How would that fierce iron-gray countenance have flashed indig- 
nation at the suggestion ! We go for Mr. Clay. We always did go 
for Mr. Clay, with exceptions. But we are afraid he has stum- 
bled here. He has erected a platform for Mr. Fillmore that 
will break down of its own weight. It won't bear up anybody, 
let alone Mr. Fillmore, who is a heavy man to sustain at all 
times. He gravitates excessively. But from no fault of his. 
Nature made him so. He can't stand, like Adrien's Mademoi- 
selle, on nothing. He can't stand on a rotten platform. He 
must have a solid bottom and good props to sustain him and it. 

J. S. P. 



122 LETTER FROM THOMAS CORWIN. [March 

[From Thomas Corwin.] 

God forgive you. I fear I cannot, except on one condition — that is, 
that you crucify your piety by actually committing the crime of dining 
with me at two o'clock to-day. I will say in truth, however, that I 
thought it a doubtful question, and so did not care which way it should 
be decided. 

I knew you were too worldly-minded not to act on the maxim — 

" If you would have soft nights and solid dinners, 
Be sure to board with saints and bed with sinners. ' ' 

Therefore I thought it probable you would take pot-luck with me 
to-day. We shall see. 

Your friend, Thos. Corwin. 

There is not, never was, the slightest color for the story concerning 
Hall and myself. Nothing of the kind has happened between any of 
the cabinet. 

I am right — your newspapers should be abolished. They circulate 
more falsehood than truth. T. C. 

Mr. Pike. 



EXPLANATIONS. MR. CORWIN. 

[From the New York Tribune.] 

Washington, March 29, 1852. 

The Hoston Courier should not call us a " devout hater of 
Mr. Webster and Mr. Fillmore." It is a misrepresentation. 
We do not profess to be particularly devotional any way. Least 
of all are we devotional in our hatreds. But we have none of 
the feeling of hate towards either of those distinguished gentle- 
men. Quite the contrary. We have a sort of devilish admira- 
tion of Mr. Webster. " It would be a great thing to have him 
President," said one of his friends recently. " So great a man f 
What luster would his elevation confer upon the country !" 
But is integrity nothing ? was asked in reply. " Yes, to be sure, 
but national affairs would be in such safe hands. The worst he 
would do would be to bankrupt the Treasury !" 

The President differs from the Secretary. He, too, lacks 
pluck. But nobody doubts his integrity. He wants back-bone. 
He means well, but he is timid, irresolute, uncertain, and loves 



1852] CHARACTERS OF THE CANDIDATES. 123 

to lean. There will be no Thermopylae in his life, as there has 
been none in the life of his chief Secretary. Nature bestowed 
no intrepidity in making up either's composition. It was the 
omitted ingredient. Would the name of either be mentioned as 
the leader of a forlorn hope ? Alas ! we need not answer. 
Would there have been "no North," think you, if Old Hal 
(with all his sins) had been born in Massachusetts ? 

No, we do not hate ! we lament — we grieve that Northern 
spirit, and Northern sentiment, and Northern convictions, are 
not honestly represented by Northern men. We do not wish to 
see sectionalism, but we do wish to see a manly independence 
and an unflinching adherence, a steady devotion to truth and 
duty. We confess we do not find those high qualities of char- 
acter either in the President or Secretary that command respect 
or inspire confidence. They will not stand fire. They melt be- 
fore the fervent heat of opposition. Of high-toned, flinty man- 
hood they have none. The President has good intentions, but, 
according to the great moralist, hell is paved with these. 

This may be plain talk, but it is the essence of the best judg- 
ments in relation to these two gentlemen on the points in ques- 
tion. Such are the sober convictions of our understanding, and 
not opinions resulting from any ' ' hate. ' ' 

But at this particular period of time we are not so much in 
search of a man peculiarly fitted for a great emergency (for we 
are in the midst of no " crisis," and apprehend none for the next 
four years) as we are of a good Whig who will make an available 
candidate for the Presidency. Therefore, we could not seriously 
object to Mr. Fillmore as a candidate, provided he were the 
strongest man to run. If he could get the most votes, we would 
be content to put up with the lesser evil of personal weakness for 
the greater good of party success. But the vital, fundamental ob- 
jection, both to him and Mr. Webster, which decides the ques- 
tion at the start, and thus precludes all necessity of weighing the 
matter further, comes of the conviction that both gentlemen are 
utterly unavailable as Presidential candidates. And herein we 
profess to be coldly judicial, and not partisan nor personal. Let 
this suffice. 

There has been much positive assertion, and perhaps as much 
contradiction, in regard to a difficulty in the Cabinet. I am able 



124 LETTER FROM P. GREELY, JR. [April 

to say, on the highest authority, that there is no foundation for 
the story. It was made entirely out of whole cloth. Not even 
the negotiation of the tripartite treaty has occasioned a ripple on 
the surface of the Cabinet. Why Mr. Corwin should be impli- 
cated in any Cabinet difficulty it is hard to conjecture. He is 
the most peaceable and popular of all men in his personal rela- 
tions, and a nobler nature than his God never incarnated upon 
the earth. But he never was made for the dead level drudgery, 
the harassing duties, the calculating precisions of official life. 
To employ him thus is to make use of California gold for a 
ploughshare. J. S. P. 



[From Philip Greely, Jr.] 

New York, April 6, 1852. 

Dear Pike : They are all right here, and in good pluck and spirits. 

The two delegates at large, Draper and Talcott, are to he chosen 
to-morrow or next day. 

Things are working well as to the districts. Possibly five or six of 
them may be against us, but some of our friends are sanguine enough to 
believe that Philip Moore will not get over two of the district delegates. 

Our boys say that we can and must succeed without any aid from 
the South. You will see some of them this week, perhaps. 

Draper says you will go ahead on your ' ' Life of Scott, ' ' and send 
over your man as soon as you please. 

Drive up Johnson, and get it all done up this week, without fail. 

Show this to Warren, and anybody else you please who are of the 
faithful. Ever yours, P. Greely, Jr. 



THE WHIGS AND THE PRESIDENCY. 

[From the New York Tribune.'] 

Washington, April 1; 1852. 
The Whig party is composed of two wings, a Northern and a 
Southern wing. The Northern division is opposed to slavery, 
and always has been. The Southern, of course, upholds that in- 
stitution. The previous jars and the present divisions of the 
party have arisen out of the conflicts of the two sections on this 
subject. Between them there has been, and is, an inevitable 



1852] POSITION' OF THE ADMINISTRATION. 125 

antagonism. These divisions and the consequent embarrassments 
have been for two or three years, and are now, greater than com- 
mon, from the circumstance that the party has been, and is, in 
power in the Executive Department of the Government, and the 
necessity has thus devolved upon it of presenting a line of action 
for the whole party upon this question. 

The administration of General Taylor adopted the let alone 
policy. It proposed to have nothing to do with the subject of 
slavery. It said, " Leave the Fugitive Law alone, leave Cali- 
fornia and New Mexico to come in as States when they get 
ready, and leave them to settle for themselves all questions of 
slavery arising within their own boundaries." This was the 
policy of the Whig administration of General Taylor on the sla- 
very question. 

Under Mr. Fillmore the policy was changed. The present 
administration insists that the line of action of the Whig party 
on this subject shall be what it never was before — viz. , a perfect 
agreement and concurrence of opinion and action upon it, by 
both divisions or sections of the party. While it is a fact that 
the two wings never did agree before on the question of slavery, 
it is proposed that now they shall agree. A course of policy for 
the whole party is thus laid down on the slavery question. Cer- 
tain measures have been passed by Congress. Chief among 
them is the Fugitive Slave Law, and the law establishing Terri- 
torial Governments without restriction as to slavery. The doc- 
trine is that the Northern Whigs, as well as the Southern Whigs, 
shall sustain those laws just as they are. And not this only ; 
they shall also agree and declare that the slavery question is 
finally adjusted ; that there is to be no more talk, no more ac- 
tion, on the subject. Slavery is to be henceforth a tabooed ques- 
tion in the party. It is the " Pot Rock" in our political navi- 
gation, to which our Whig Administration profess to have been 
the Mons. Maillefert, blowing off all its dangerous prominence. 
It is to be hereafter considered sunk. 

This is the present position of the Whig Administration on 
this subject — a subject that has long divided it, and long been 
regarded a question on which the two divisions of the party 
were to be allowed to differ ; upon which, in the very nature of 
things, they could in fact do no otherwise than differ. 



126 WHIGS MUST AGREE TO DISAGREE. [April 

It is, in a word, a very plain attempt to make Northern Whigs 
take Southern ground on the subject of slavery. It is an at- 
tempt to destroy the old divisions by making one side surrender 
to the other. It does not say to the North, " Hold your own 
opinions on slavery, whether it comes in the shape of the right 
of petition, as in Mr. Adams's time, in that of the Proviso under 
General Taylor's administration, or in that of the Fugitive Law 
under Mr. Fillmore's." But, on the contrary, it declares that 
the Northern Whigs shall take ground against all petitions on 
slavery, against mooting the question of the Proviso, against ex- 
pressing dislike to the Fugitive Law, against all agitation of 
every kind whatever on the question of slavery. We certainly 
do not overstate the case. The idea of " adjustment " and 
" finality" goes the whole length of this. 

Now we wish to ask our Southern Whig friends, in a spirit 
of candor, and in a spirit of philosophy also, if there is any good 
reason to suppose the Whig party can be fused and made one, 
upon this subject, on such a basis as this ? We admit the sim- 
plicity of the plan, and it is very easy for Mr. " Kit" Williams 
and Mr. Humphrey Marshall and Mr. E. Carrington Cabell, et 
id genus omne, to insist that the Whig party cannot continue to 
endure upon any other basis. Nothing in the world is more 
easy. But, looking at the nature of the demand, and of the 
plan, under the light of the experience of the last fifteen years 
on this question of slavery, and regarding the ordinary laws of 
human action, we ask if it be probable that such a settlement or 
adjustment is likely to be ratified and sustained by the Northern 
division of the Whig party ? The action of a given community, 
sustaining given relations and furnishing a given experience of 
many years' duration, is a problem to be solved irrespective of 
all political and party considerations, and in this case it does not 
seem to present any great difficulties of solution. It can be 
solved as easy, in our estimation, as any sum can be done in the 
rule of three. It seems to us just as plain as the stars in the sky, 
or the nose on a man's face. If we are not greatly at fault, the 
solution is equally plain and palpable to every man of sense, no 
matter where he hails from, whether it be North or South. It 
seems to us that the convictions of every sensible man's under- 
standing, no matter what his works or his hopes, must be that 



1852] COMPROMISES NOT SUITABLE. 127 

the expectation is utterly fallacious. This conclusion is to be 
drawn from the very nature of the human mind, our knowledge 
of the laws of its operation, and our experience on this subject 
in particular. Herein is to be found the basis of Mr. Calhoun's 
judgments on this question. The idea that a " compromise" 
or a vote of Congress on this question altered the real relation or 
judgment, or would influence the action of the Northern mind 
in regard to it, was a transparent folly that his eagle glance 
always pierced in an instant. Oh ! green and verdant gentlemen 
of the House of Representatives ! ye who vainly fancy that car- 
rying the compromise measures through your illustrious body 
is a great political stroke, even a triumph over an ever active* 
principle in the heart of man ; it is time you were resolving that 
the sun shall stand still on another Gibeon. It is time you were 
erecting a stage under the ends of the rainbow in order to spike 
it on to the sky. It is time you had resolved that the ocean shall 
cease to surge, the streams to flow, or the season to return. Vote 
winter to be eternal, that darkness shall reign forever, but do no 
such folly as vote that the human heart shall not throb in sym- 
pathy with the ojvpressed and give voice to its sympathies. Vote 
not that the mental volition of a free people shall be fettered and 
chained down ; vote not that the spirit of liberty shall be 
quenched ! Do not attempt to betray freedom, do not offend 
humanity, do not provoke heaven, do not expose Congress to 
ridicule, do not do yourselves injustice by any such monstrous 
folly as this. You may " compromise" a tariff question, or a 
land or a money question, for such are material in their nature, 
evanescent in character, and limited in scope. But you cannot 
" compromise" a question of human freedom, for its relations 
and influences go beyond the stars, and its bearings and connec- 
tions are eternal. 

And now let us ask, in all moderation of spirit, of what bind- 
ing efficacy would be a unanimous declaration of the Whigs in 
Congress if such a thing were possible that the policy of this 
Administration on the slavery question shall hereafter be the 
policy of the Whig party of the North ? Do the people of the 
North or of the South take their opinions from Congress ? Do 
the millions in the free States think for themselves, and deter- 
mine for themselves ? or do they take their judgments and their 



128 AGREEMENT IMPOSSIBLE. [April 

convictions from "Washington ? Can anybody imagine or pre- 
tend that a resolution of Congress on the subject of slavery 
alters any man's opinion in the North or South in regard to it ? 
Do our Southern Whig friends imagine that if Congress should 
unanimously resolve to-morrow that slavery was a great curse, 
that ought to be removed by immediate emancipation, that it 
would change the real state of sentiment in the South on that 
question ? The truth is, that the declarations and speeches of 
party leaders and so-called " great men," and the resolutions of 
legislative bodies, are to go for just nothing at all when they are 
in direct conflict with the public opinion of which they profess 
to be the exponent, or of which they claim to be the guide. Of 
what avail are such agencies — of what avail is any party ma- 
chinery, or legislative machinery, to suppress the workings of the 
human mind and heart ? 

In what, then, is this attempt of a handful of men who are 
to-day in power, and to-morrow will be in private life, and the 
next day in their graves, to issue ? In what but utter futility ? 
The supposition that it will come to any thing else is a weak de- 
lusion. These contrivances of political men to constrain the 
free and natural action of the Northern Whig mind (and not 
alone Whig minds, but those of every shade of political opinion) 
are feeble and foolish beyond expression. 

No, Mr. "Kit" Williams and Mr. Humphrey Marshall and 
Mr. E. Carrington Cabell and Mr. All-the-rest, who dream (fit- 
fully and fearingly, perhaps) that this present Whig Administra- 
tion plan of consolidating the Whig party and bringing it to an 
agreement upon the subject of slavery will work usefully, you 
are mistaken. There are two parts to the Whig party. There 
is a Northern and a Southern division, a slavery and an anti- 
slavery wing. There always was, and always must be, while it 
exists as a National party. On the subject of slavery there can 
be no agreement. The two sections of the party must do now 
and hereafter as they always have done — agree to disagree, or 
the party must go to pieces. There would be just as much sense 
in the Northern Whigs insisting that the Southern Whigs should 
set about exerting themselves for the overthrow of slavery, as 
for Southern Whigs to insist that Northern Whigs shall abdicate 
the position they have always held in opposition to slavery and 



1852] NORTHERN WHIGS IMMOVABLE. 129 

turn its advocates and supporters. There is no sense in either 
expectation. There is a natural antagonism in their several po- 
sitions and relations as to slavery that forbid co-operation upon 
that subject. And to attempt to force an unnatural union like 
the one we have been contemplating, is just the most senseless 
thing that any man or set of men can possibly undertake. 

Do the Northern Whigs, then, design or contemplate any party 
action adverse to slavery in the (Southern States ? Let their past 
history answer. As a party, while they have been more true, 
by far, to their convictions on the question of freedom whenever 
it has arisen, in Congress and out, than the miscalled " Democ- 
racy," they have nevertheless never manifested any intention or 
wish to touch the question of slavery in the slave States. They 
do not wish to discuss or agitate that question, for they have 
nothing to do with it. They do not wish to nominate, they never 
have wished to nominate, a candidate for the Presidency with 
any reference to his views on slavery. Their past history is the 
proof of this. They have not manifested any design or inten- 
tion even of disturbing the measures of compromise passed two 
years ago, much as the great body of them disliked and opposed, 
and now dislike, a portion of those measures. They have been 
contented to be quiet and to acquiesce in those measures, though, 
so far as the action of Congress was concerned, they were be- 
trayed and beaten. 

This is their present position. God knows it is tame enough 
and liberal enough towards those, their allies, who triumphed in 
the Congressional contest arising out of our Territorial acquisi- 
tions. So much they are willing to yield for the sake of har- 
mony and good neighborhood, while they strive for success 
under the old flag and on the old platform of agreeing to disa- 
gree. More than this they will not grant. Beyond this they 
will not go. They are willing to hold to the old landmarks. 
They do not desire to move stake or stone. But they will not 
allow themselves to be forced on to new grounds, or to take up 
new positions. They stand where they have always stood, and 
they will stand nowhere else. The traces of the present Admin- 
istration may be hitched upon them, but the load is too great to 
be started. It were as well to attempt to draw a mountain with 
a cord. The little bugle blasts of the Cabells, the Williamses, 



130 GENERAL SCOTT A GOOD WHIG. [April 

or the Marshalls, in their influence upon them, are but tin trum- 
pets against a wall. The Northern Whigs can neither be alarmed 
nor inspired by such music, and, these gentlemen to the contrary 
notwithstanding, the summing of the whole matter is this, so far 
as the Presidency is concerned. If the Whigs are to elect the 
President of 1852 at all, they are to elect him as they elected the 
President of 1848, without reference to the slavery question, or 
to any measures, whether they be " Compromise" or any other 
that grow out of it. The Northern Whigs are willing to go for 
General Scott because he is a good Whig, and because they be- 
lieve he can be elected. They won't stop to catechise him as to 
his opinions on any past measures of legislation, nor in regard to 
his opinions on slavery. All they ask of him is that he shall 
not come out and pledge himself to slavery men or measures, 
and thus make himself a sectional instead of a National candi- 
date, and this they will assuredly insist upon, let the conse- 
quences be what they may. 

Let us not be understood as attributing too much consequence 
to the position of a few impracticable Southern Whigs, and as 
inferring thence especial danger to the party. The develop- 
ments of the last two or three days forbid such apprehensions, 
even if we could not safely rely upon the sterling sense of such 
men as Mangum, Bell, Gentry, Jones, and other old and w r ell- 
tried Southern Whigs. The speech of Mr. Gray in the House 
to-day, and the letter of Edward Stanly in The Republic of this 
morning, plainly point out the course things will take in the 
South — so far as General Scott is concerned, at least. Mr. 
Stanly is sometimes harsh in his expressions, but his sober second- 
thought is almost sure to be right. To a man of such inherent 
nobleness of nature, and such genuine intrepidity of character, 
combined with so much clearness and soundness of judgment, we 
can pardon much in the way of difference on minor points, and we 
can never hold any other language towards him than that of com- 
mendation, but with the most profound regret. J. S. P. 



1852] LETTERS FROM P. OREELY, JR. 131 

Custom-House, Boston, \ 

Collector's Office, April 10, 1852. ) 

Honorable Pike : Things here are well. I am at work about dele- 
gates, and expect to get a good list, most of whom will vote right on 
the first ballot, but we must work cautiously. 

Governor Everett declines acting as a delegate, and the vacancy will 
be filled by the other delegates when they are chosen. 

The "Webster folks have not yet found out that they are nobodies, 
and must swing and swagger a little more before reaching their proper 
place. They are calculating that our New York friend will decline in 
favor of the X-pounder, and are not yet up to the full point of abuse of 
that gentleman. 

I see that your caucus accomplished nothing, and adjourned for a 
week. Let me know why, and keep me posted up every few days as to 
what is going on, and how things look. 

I am in good spirits, and believe we can elect Cherubusco anyhow. 

Stanly's letter is not bad. Thine, 



Custom-House, Boston, ) 

Collector's Office, April 15, 1852. f 

Honorable Pike : I have yours of the 13th inst., and am glad to 
see you are at work on the ' ' Life. ' ' I will guarantee it will be spunky, 
and if it passes the ordeal which Johnson's was submitted to, it will be 
right. Push it through as soon as possible. 

Your letter, and many others that I have seen and received, show a 
good state of things in W. If you can manage it so as to drive Mar- 
shall, Cabell & Co. out of the party, it will be a good job well done. 
They can do mischief if they remain in the party, but if they sizzle at 
the caucus they should be immediately denounced and driven off. The 
old Jackson doctrine of shooting traitors is a good one, and we must 
practice it. 

I am glad to hear that Clingman is coming right again, inasmuch as 
he represents a very strong Whig district. 

Russell writes to me in first-rate spirits, and seems to see the old 
General already seated in the White House. 

I am in great hopes as to our delegates. The Webster men are mad, 
especially with me, and are circulating papers to have me removed, but 
it will only hurt their own teeth to bite at files. 

Love to Fitz and the faithful. 

Ever vours, P. G., Jr. 



132 LETTERS FROM P. GREELY, JR. [May 

Custom-House, Boston, ) 

Collector's Office, May 3, 1852. f 

Dear Pike : Yours of the 22d ult. came duly to hand. I am glad 
to hear that your are in New York now about the picture-book. Get it 
out as soon as you can, and circulate it rapidly and freely. 

There is no time to be lost. I am quite sure that Scott will be nomi- 
nated, and be elected too if we do not yield to the South in convention. 

See my calculation enclosed. But if we yield to the South we are 
gone irrecoverably ! There is no doubt at all upon this point. Our 
Freesoilers say to me that if we do not yield we can elect Scott by the 
votes of the free States, and that is my opinion. 

If the General chooses to write a good letter, after he is nominated, 
I have no objection ; but he must not say one word until then, nor must 
the convention make any new platform. 

The Atlas of to-day has a good article, and all our newspapers must 
take the same ground. The Courier of to-day has an article on the- 
other side. 

I see the Buffalo Commercial Advertiser is down upon you. I sup- 
pose you know how to reply. 

Yours ever, P. G., Jr. 



Custom-House, Boston, ) 

Collector's Office, May 15, 1852. ) 

Dear Pike : I was sorry you went off from here so soon, as I hoped 
to see more of you, but I trust you are using up your time to good 
purpose. 

So soon as the " Life" is out send me some of the first impressions, 
and (jet it out as soon as you can. 

Things are looking better for us everywhere every day. We shall 
nominate Scott, and I hope Ave shall pass no resolutions, nor write any 
letter, that will do any harm, but I shall not despair of success if we are 
forced into passing resolutions by a small majority, and writing a letter 
too. 

Mr. Hudson is at work upon a letter, and will send it to you soon. 
Botts' letter is first-rate, and even the Herald is taking good ground 
just now. 

Stanly has written to Schouler a coaxing letter, hoping that some- 
thing will be done to relieve the good Whigs of the South, but we shall 
not meddle with the matter here. When you get back to W. you 
must settle the thing with our Southern friends in such a way as to 



1852] GREAT MEN. 133 

help them if you can, and not injure us. Perhaps we may run for 
somebody else than Scott, in part, on the first ballot, and thus bring in 
the South more readily for him afterwards. 

We are at work on our delegates.. Dr. Bell is on our side, so that 
we stand now four Webster men and one Whig. Eight more to be 
chosen, whom we hope to elect as Whigs. But I think our whole dele- 
gation, after voting for Webster once, will go in for Scott. 
Ever vours, 



GREAT MEN AND USEFUL MEN. 
[From the New York Tribune.] 

Washington, Monday, May 24, 1852. 

Man is a problem. Given his head, chest, and abdomen, 
and we know the rest. How few are properly made up ! Par- 
don our heresy, but great men do a deal of harm. They have 
bedeviled the world from the beginning. We used to regret 
that the term of human life is so short. We have grown wiser, 
and rejoice that people die so soon. If we can, without being 
irreverent, intimate such a thing, we should say that the original 
design of the Creator in allowing men to live five hundred and a 
thousand years was found to be a great mistake, which a very 
early occasion was taken to rectify. What upon earth could we 
do now with a parcel of political Methuselahs '? How would they 
complicate affairs till they became tangled in inextricable con- 
fusion ! Nay, if we were to propose any change in the term of 
human life, it would be to shorten the threescore and ten, so as 
to make it even score. 

Let us bear in mind that it was the virtue rather than the 
greatness of Washington that saved us in the Kevolution. Since 
that era, all the salvation the country has had from its great men 
has been in such precious devices as the Missouri Compromise, 
the South Carolina Compromise, and the recent Union Saving 
Compromise. If such are to be the fruits of salvation, who 
would not choose to be damned ? 

There is a State in the East called Massachusetts. Let that 
great and nourishing commonwealth illustrate, in fact, our mean- 
ing and position. We need make no catalogue of her thrifty 



134 TALKING NOT ACTING. [Mat 

cities, her busy and happy villages, her factories, foundries, 
shops, ships, and railroads ; of her schools, colleges, benevolent 
institutions, her asylums, and her prisons. In all she is the 
acknowledged model commonwealth of the world. And in no 
respect is she more elevated than in this — that she has followed 
the convictions of an inexorable sense of duty and repudiated the 
apostacy of her greatest man and favorite son. And now, let us 
ask, who has created this Massachusetts ? Is she the offspring 
of any one, two, or three great minds ? Has any one man ele- 
vated her to her present proud position ? If Mr. Webster had 
been born and always lived in the Fejee Islands, would the Massa- 
chusetts of to-day be any the less the Massachusetts she is ? No, 
she is not the creation of any great man or great men. On the 
contrary, she is a living illustration of what the people themselves 
can do when their faculties are allowed free scope, and their 
powers permitted to expand and strengthen under free institu- 
tions. She is a standing monument of what all the world may 
become under self-government, when the nations shall be par of 
their self -constituted rulers, get out of their leading strings, and 
have learned self-reliance. In this country, especially, we should 
and must depend upon such men as have made Massachusetts 
what she is — the great middle class of men. It is they who are 
the all in all. Give us men of sense, sound judgment, and hon- 
esty to till public stations, but the Lord deliver us from famous 
men, and especially from those who have made their fame by 
their much speaking. 

As Gorgey says of Kossuth, the orators always display a pro- 
digious contrast between what they say and what they do. It is 
a notorious fact that the most attractive speaker that the North 
ever sent to Congress was worth nothing as a legislator, and 
would have been as useless as an administrative officer. Affairs 
of government are emphatically affairs of business, and are best 
done by purely business men. And whenever this idea shall get 
fairly beat into the heads of people, the days of the orators will be 
over, except as ornamental appendages to the legislative depart- 
ment of the government. J. S. P. 



1852] ATTACKS OF THE NEWSPAPERS. 135 



NORTHERN APOSTATES. 

[From the New York Tribune.} 

Washington, May 24, 1852. 

Your "Washington correspondent has, I think, received an un- 
due share of vituperation within the last three or four weeks 
from presses in the interest of the Administration. The assaults, 
so far as we have observed them, are so clumsy and misplaced 
that they are only calculated to excite one's risibles. Thus we 
have it laid to our door, as a serious charge, that we are a very 
rank and prejudiced Free Soiler, and that we run for Congress 
two years ago as an anti-Compromise candidate, under Mr. 
Seward's patronage. Now, however pointless these charges, it 
yet so happens that we never had any personal acquaintance 
whatever with Senator Seward until within the last four or five 
months, and, for aught we know to the contrary, he never was 
cognizant of the fact we ever had any boyish ambition to get into 
Congress. And as to our fierce Abolitionism, we think it hard 
that a man cannot escape this charge who was an original out- 
and-out Taylor man, who was not reckoned sound enough in 
1848 to represent the Northern feeling (of which Mr. Webster 
was the illustrious embodiment in the Convention of 1848), and 
who has never shifted his position on the general question of 
slavery and the Proviso from that day to this. Others have been 
extra Northern and extra Southern at different times, boxing the 
political compass just as the gales of political favor blew, while 
we have steadily held our course without starting tack or sheet, 
holding fast always to what we esteemed to be sound doctrine, 
and striving for the most practicable method of efficiently assert- 
ing it. But upon such personal matters we have no inclination 
to waste time or room. 

If we are disposed to be any way severe upon the Northern 
men who have apostatized on the slavery question, and we sup- 
pose it mast be the manifestation of this disposition that has 
drawn down so many objurgatory epithets upon our humble com- 
ments, it is because of the strength and depth of our convictions 
of the mischief that such apostacy cannot fail to work upon the 
public mind, unless it be fully exposed and unceasingly con- 
demned. We are constrained to regard the course of Mr. Web- 



136 P ULP1T SLA VER T AD VOCA TES. [May 

ster, and those who have followed him in his lamentable desertion 
of principle, as pernicious in the extreme, and deserving, there- 
fore, of unqualified rebuke and condemnation. When led by 
distinguished men, such political tergiversation as we have wit- 
nessed debauches the tone of public morals in all the walks of 
life. Literature is vitiated, the press is corrupted, the pulpit is 
infected. What have we not seen within the last few years ? 
Newspapers subsidized and turned to the right about face as 
quickly as ever an army changed front at the word of command ; 
books of education, those mighty agents in forming the opinions 
of the rising generation, emasculated of the manly sentiments of 
freedom ; hoary clergymen preaching doctrines that hardened 
sinners mentally damn on the spot for their scoundrelism, and 
who, if heaven had no more charity than earth, would be blasted 
by the lightnings of the Almighty for their impious desecration 
of their office. Old Hunkerism in the pulpit is enough to make 
the world infidel. The preacher who fails to assert, or, by im- 
plication, denies, the supremacy of the "higher law," deserves 
to be roasted in sulphur. Yet has the political apostacy of the 
last two years unveiled to our vision such white-neckerchiefed 
renegades. 

Witnessing these things we have no honied words or apolo- 
getic or deferential terms to apply to those whose example we 
believe has been the primary cause of this demoralization. And 
herein, we beg to be allowed to say, is to be found the main- 
spring of any severity of remark we may have indulged, or may 
hereafter indulge, towards certain gentlemen now in official sta- 
tion. The passionate commentators upon our course, who in the 
use of extravagant terms of denunciation have but exhibited their 
ill blood to no purpose, will see by this how far their arrows 
have fallen short of the mark, and that they might well, there- 
fore, have spared themselves the pains of discharging them. 

J. S. P. 



[From Horace Greeley.] 

New York, May 26, 1852. 
Pike : You are damaging Scott by the savageness of your attacks on 
Fillmore. The Express, you see, is down on you like a thousand of 



1852] PRESIDENTIAL CONVENTION. 13? 

brick, and you must now bring your witness into court or back square 
out of your charge. Make your man toe the mark ! 

I enclose a letter I have just received from Hon. E. J. Penniman, of 
Michigan, whom Freesoil elected, but who thinks you are rendering any 
Whig victory impracticable. Be careful. Suppose you talk with 
Penniman. Yours, H. Greeley. 

James S. Pike, Esq., Washington City. 



THE COMING STRUGGLE. 
[From the New York Tribune.] 

Washington, Thursday, May 27, 1852. 

The city is very full of strangers, attracted hither by the ap- 
proaching Convention. 

We would affectionately remind our brethren of the press, 
who have lately manifested such a tumult of indignation because 
we have, in a quiet manner, innocently given a few items of in- 
telligence respecting the President's desires and conduct in rela- 
tion to a renomination, that they are unduly sensitive. We have 
uttered nothing but the unvarnished truth in relation to the sub- 
ject, and this we consider to be not only our indisputable privi- 
lege, but our bounden duty, so long as we undertake to write at 
all upon public affairs. Surely, surely, the stating of a few 
facts in a mild way ought not to raise such a tempest of objur- 
gation. If we were really disposed to bear down upon the Presi- 
dent, we might say things that would be reckoned severe. But 
we have no aims of this sort, and try to clothe the disagreeable 
truths which we feel bound to communicate in as inoffensive 
phraseology as possible. If we are not so successful in doing this 
as another might be, it is our misfortune rather than our fault. 

The speeches upon that well-known and highly recommended 
political anodyne, termed the Compromise, are daily laid before 
the House and the country as regularly as a cataplasm is changed 
upon an inflamed patient. Sometimes the ingredients are mus- 
tard, and sometimes bread and milk, and thus, of course, they at 
times start a blister, and again they temporarily reduce the in- 
flammation. Our Congressional orators may be fairly likened to 
a room full of people round the bedside of a suffering mortal, 
who only needs to cease taking their endless nostrums to recover. 



138 CARTTER'S SPEECH. [Ma* 

If the country could have had no compromise, or could even 
now be let alone, it would soon get quite comfortable and com- 
posed. But the determined effort to agitate it into quiet makes 
small headway in accomplishing the object. 

Among the speeches of the week, of great excellence, has 
been one from Mr. Cartter, of Ohio, who made, off-hand, an ad- 
mirable extemporaneous effort ; and a speech from Mr. Wash- 
burn, of Maine. On the one side, and on the other, however, 
these speeches, though very good and perfectly just and true in 
all respects, are reckoned, like some of the letters in the 
Tribune, to be ill-timed. The state of parties is esteemed to be 
something like that of a febrile and nervous invalid. They are 
not considered to be in a condition to bear excitement, or to be 
roughly told the naked truth. They are therefore watched with 
a great deal of solicitude by the political nurses, who try to hush 
up all noise and confusion, to as great a degree as is possible. 
The slamming of a door, or the thrashing of a loose blind, any- 
where about the political mansion, throws them into an agony of 
trepidation. In one of the systems of prison discipline the pris- 
oners are all hooded when they come in each other's presence, so 
as to disguise their faces, and thus prevent present and subse- 
quent recognition. Something akin to this is practised, or en- 
deavored to be practised, between the North and South. There 
is a constant effort to apply the hooding system in politics. The 
Southern Locofocos, for example, think it dangerous in the ex- 
treme when such brother Locofocos as Cleveland and Cartter and 
Rantoul and Preston King take off their hoods and exhibit their 
ugly Northern faces to the South. And so, to some extent, on 
the other side. But we have no time to do more than suggest the 
figure. J. S. P. 



CUSTOM-HOUSE, BOSTON, ) 

Collector's Office, May 27, 1852. \ 
Dear Pike : Yours of the 23d received. Hudson has sent you that 
letter to-day. I think it is good, and ought to satisfy the South, but it 
may have to be made a little more Southern in its aspect to please some 
people. 

Stave off all resolutions in convention, if possible. 

Schouler is going on next week, but will stop in Baltimore a few 



1852] LETTER FROM HORACE GREELEY. 139 

days to see what the Locofocos do. Some other good folks will go on 
shortly. 

I am in doubt what we ought to do on the first ballot. Perhaps on 
an informal ballot everybody will be satisfied to vote for their favorite, 
so that we can nominate Scott on the first regular ballot. Our delegates 
are generally good Whigs, and go for success, but they will wish to vote 
for Mr. Webster if they can. One half of them will really be Scott men 
at heart ! 

Draper says the book will not be out until after the nomination. 

You must find that missing letter of mine. I do not remember what 
it was, but it ought not to fall into the hands of the enemy. 

Write to me if you have found it. 

Ever yours, P. G., Jr. 



[From Horace Greeley.] 

jSTew York, May 29, 1852. 

Friend P. : I have taken time to write considerately the ' ' rough 
draft" you speak of, which I herewith enclose, having had it copied by 
my little boy, who alone knows here that you have written me, and whose 
ignorance of such matters has led him to make some blunders in the 
copying. But here you have it, and when you send me word to burn 
the original, all trace of it will be confined to the copy before you. 

I wish General S. had not consented to write about the Compro- 
mise at all ; but since he is to write, I think he cannot say less than I 
have indicated. There must be no reserve, no equivocation, no con- 
cealment on any point, but all as clear as sunlight. Frankness will dis- 
arm hostile criticism, and win confidence and support. 

I presume you and others will not be willing to go as far as this. I 
therefore insist that, since you have made me write, you shall show this 
to General S., and tell him I say we can stand it at the North. He 
will judge whether it ought not to satisfy the South, and absolve him 
from all necessity of writing further. 

Yours, Horace Greeley. 

J. S. P. 



In the Presidential canvass of 1852 there was a struggle be- 
tween the two wings of the Whig party for the nomination, and 
likewise in regard to the platform. General Scott was supported 



140 THE SCOTT LETTER. [June 

by the Wilmot Proviso men, and they expected to succeed in 
nominating him, which they did. But they foresaw they might 
be saddled with an obnoxious platform. They wished to neu- 
tralize the effects of this by a personal declaration from General 
Scott, and they obtained his promise to write a satisfactory letter 
of acceptance. The question as to what the letter should be was 
a difficult and anxious one. Several were written by different 
individuals ; among them one by Mr. Seward and one by Mr. 
Greeley, and another, which, after long deliberation, was decided 
upon. But General Scott, after consenting to sign it, upset the 
whole arrangement by telegraphing his acceptance of the nomina- 
tion " with the resolutions annexed. " This maladroit perform- 
ance prevented the issue of the letter, and precluded all the an- 
ticipated advantages from it. None of the letters have ever seen 
the light. But the following is Mr. Greeley's contribution : 

HORACE GREELEY'S PROPOSED LETTER TO BE ISSUED BY GENERAL 

SCOTT. 

Washington, June 20, 1852. 

Gentlemen : Yours of the 15th, officially apprising me of my nomi- 
nation for the Presidency by the Whig National Convention, is before 
me. 

Attached by earnest conviction, founded on a patient and unbiased 
observation of public affairs, to the distinctive principles and measures 
of the Whig party, I receive this evidence of its confidence and esteem 
with profound and grateful sensibility. My consciousness of obligation 
is heightened by the fact that the two names submitted to that Conven- 
tion in honorable and friendly competition with mine were those of 
champions of our common principles most widely and deeply beloved — 
the one an elder soldier in our cause, and both far abler and more 
efficient than myself — statesmen whose counsels have long been my 
guide, and whose orders have more recently been my law, and to whose 
election, had either of them been nominated, I should gladly have ren- 
dered whatever of support may be consistent with the proprieties of my 
position and the requirements of my sphere of duty. 

Already known as a Whig, although justly debarred from any active 
intervention in partisan strife, it may well seem superfluous to add that 
I devoutly reverence the Federal Constitution as the immediate source 
and safeguard of our priceless blessings as a nation, that I yield it my 
unquestioning and unqualified obedience as the chart of my political 



1852] GREELEY'S SCOTT LETTER. 141 

course. For its authoritative interpretation I look alone to the Federal 
Judiciary, holding myself bound to obey it as that judiciary shall expound 
it, and to obey all laws which that court shall pronounce accordant with 
its spirit and authorized by its provisions. Never ceasing to be a citizen, 
I have been too long a soldier not to realize the worth of loyalty ; and, 
however humble my abilities and insignificant my career, 1 may at least 
fearlessly challenge detraction to point to an instance wherein I have 
ever swerved from my duty as a servant and minister of legitimate 
authority, or been tempted to exalt power above law. 

I have been repeatedly asked to give publicity to my views regarding 
the series of measures currently known as the Compromise of 1850, and 
I have ever avowed a willingness to do so whenever I might, without 
seeming to thrust myself upon the public attention, and arrogate for my 
opinions an importance to which they had no rightful claim. That 
time, in my judgment, has now arrived ; and I proceed to fulfil my 
intention. 

A compromise in 1850 by Congress between the contending interests 
and parties, sectional and other, seemed to me indispensable. I could 
perceive no practical mode apart from this whereby the due and rightful 
security could be extended to persons and property in our newly-acquired 
Territories, and the danger, apparently most imminent, of a desolating 
and terrible civil war be averted. Whether the Territories ought to have 
been organized, either with or without the Wilmot Proviso, independently 
of compromise or bargain of any kind, seemed of the smallest practical 
moment, since it had become palpable and certain that they would not be. 
I, therefore, seeing no good likely to be attained by protracting the 
fieice sectional controversy then raging, but very much and formidable 
evil to result from it, gave my earnest and conscientious support to the 
series of measures reported to the Senate by Mr. Clay and grouped 
under the general name of " the Compromise." I did not ask whether 
all their provisions were just such as I would have preferred ; the sim- 
ple fact that they were presented and supported as a compromise clearly 
implied and confessed that they were thoroughly acceptable to no one. 
I took them as they were presented — as I only could take them — and, 
deeming it better for the country that they should pass than that they 
should fail, I gave them an earnest and conscientious support. By that 
support I hold myself committed, in honor and uprightness, to adhere ; 
these measures I hold myself bound, in their essence and substance, to 
maintain. If there be any modification of detail, not inconsistent with 
their general purpose, whereby they may be rendered more acceptable 
or less obnoxious to any number of dissidents, I shall be at all times 



142 GREELEY'S SCOTT LETTER. [June 

most happy to concur in it ; but from any co-operation or consent to 
overthrow or essentially change it, I hold myself precluded by the dic- 
tates of integrity and the obligations of good faith. 

Such is my position ; such are my convictions ; I trust they can at 
least be understood. But I must be allowed to add, in order not to 
be misapprehended on any side, that my judgment has condemned and 
my feelings have revolted at the attempts I have witnessed to make of 
these compromise measures a party Shibboleth, and to extort from dis- 
sidents a reluctant assent to their wisdom and justice, under penalty of 
exclusion from public life. To my mind these attempts, however 
intended, whether aimed at dissatisfaction in the North or in the South, 
are eminently calculated to foster and inflame the discontent which they 
seem intended to quell, and to render once more threatening those wounds 
and inflammations which time alone can thoroughly heal. I regard all 
attempts to affix a stigma to those who have not yet concurred in the 
propriety of the Compromise, to exclude them from public trust, or 
to render impracticable or humiliating their co-operation with their 
political brethren in the support of principles and measures whereon 
they are agreed, as most suicidal in their character, and certain to 
protract and aggravate the resistance which they profess to be intended 
to overcome. 

Impelled by these convictions, I decline to give any pledge, such as 
has been required of me, to exercise the veto power lodged with the 
President to defeat any possible modification of either of the Compro- 
mise measures. That power is one which should be very sparingly and 
cautiously used ; I could not accept it under a mortgage ; if there be a 
majority of my countrymen who desire to see it shaken in the face of 
a minority to exasperate and madden them with the taunt of impo- 
tence and helplessness, they must commit it to other hands than mine. 
For my own part, gentlemen, grateful for the favors which I have 
already received from my countrymen, I have no desire to serve them 
in a more exalted station, unless I may be called to that station by the 
free choice of a majority of the American people and sustained therein 
by the united and cordial support of that great party whose convictions 
I share, whose candidate, by the choice of your Convention, I am. 

Believe me, gentlemen, your honored and grateful friend and servant, 



1852] UNFAIR USES OF PATRONAGE. 143 



A WORD ON THE WHIG NOMINATION. 
[From the New York Tribune.] 

Washington, Wednesday, June 2, 1852. 

Obloquy is the necessary ingredient of all true glory. So 
says the great Irishman. We accept the aphorism. It is our 
present consolation. We are maligned without stint, and must 
draw consolation from some quarter. We welcome the aid of 
philosophy. It is of no use to turn upon our assailants. Per- 
sonalities have no interest to the general reader, and ill-mannered 
fellows who have got old enough to be writing in the newspapers 
can hardly be improved by flagellation. We shall not, there- 
fore, stop to waste words upon the Albany, Michigan, and New 
York editors who are so liberal in their assaults. We must de- 
vote our attentions to persons of more consequence, and to mat- 
ters of really public concern. 

It is impossible for a man who perceives the true state of 
things to restrain the expression of his indignation over the 
efforts of tlie President and his friends to control the Whig nomi- 
nation. One may perhaps well abate the energy of his repre- 
hension in view of the fact that these efforts, however zealously 
conducted and blindly pushed, will, at the last, fail. But the 
desire to rebuke such censurable proceedings nevertheless exists, 
and refuses to be denied expression. It is nothing that one es- 
capes the contents of a loaded pistol because it missed fire. It 
is quite difficult to regard the attempt to discharge it with com- 
placency because it happened to prove unsuccessful. But we 
are especially urged to the expression of our sentiments, because 
we hear it daily said that the President and his friends really ex- 
pect success in their efforts. 

Now, what we have to say, that we think ought to be said, 
is this : We believe it to be a fact that the patronage of the Gov- 
ernment was never more directly and determinedly used to fur- 
ther the personal aims of the President than now. We do not 
think it will be denied by any unprejudiced, well-informed man 
that Mr. Fillmore would not get a single vote in Convention 
from the free States (out of abounding liberality we might ex- 
cept the Buffalo district), but for the exercise of the influence 
and patronage of the Government to procure delegates. And 



1W PRESIDENTIAL ASPIRATIONS. [June 

we believe it to be equally true that, but for the same influences, 
neither Georgia, nor South Carolina, nor Alabama, and probably 
neither Arkansas nor Texas, would send delegates to the Con- 
vention. What, for example, can be more palpably the work of 
Custom-House officers and agents and wire-pullers of the Admin- 
istration than the recent skeleton caucuses at Charleston and 
Mobile ? And what more plainly the offspring of the same 
agencies, and at the same time more preposterous, than the pro- 
posed representation from Georgia ? A most distinguished for- 
mer Whig politician of that State has lately declared that the 
delegation from Georgia in the Whig National Convention will 
not represent a constituency of 200 voters in the State, all told — 
by this statement meaning to convey the idea that there is no 
Whig party proper at this moment in the State, acting indepen- 
dently of the " Union" organization, which party organization 
declared it would send no delegates to the Baltimore Convention. 
It is principally in view of this state of the case that we say 
it is difficult to regard with patience the daily declarations of the 
President's friends that they expect to furnish the Whig party 
with a candidate for the Presidency. To our apprehension noth- 
ing in political conduct can be more culpable and insulting than 
the active efforts of the President's friends to nominate him by 
such means. The idea of having a candidate imposed upon the 
party by the agency and influences of Executive patronage is so 
abhorrent to all our notions of propriety, and would be such an 
outrage upon fair dealing, that we are astonished to find men of 
sense and respectability engaging in such a scheme. W x e would 
like to ask, supposing such an one could be successful, with what 
sort of sentiments would a barely beaten minority regard such a 
result, and what sort of support would they give to such a candi- 
date ? Can any thing in the world be more palpable than that he 
would be repudiated with indignation and derision ? We do not 
speak with reference to any fears we entertain of the result of 
the coming Whig Convention at Baltimore. We have none — 
none whatever. The nomination of General Scott, we believe, 
will be made by an overwhelming vote. But we can easily 
imagine a closely balanced Convention, where suc^i reprehensible 
measures as we speak of might determine the question between 
rival candidates. And we solicit the unbiased judgment of 



.1852] LETTER FROM P. OREELT, JR. 145 

every man upon such a supposable case, and ask what would be 
the natural effects of a nomination so obtained ? Let the an- 
swer which spontaneously arises to every man's inquiries of him- 
self upon this subject suggest a fitting rebuke to the friends of 
the President, who have been for months, and are now, making 
use of the machinery of the Government, and directing its 
patronage to secure Mr. Fillmore's nomination. And let it in- 
dicate to the President himself the odium that such transactions 
must inevitably attach to him, even if it could not be positively 
shown that he was personally advising and urging such courses. 
The unavoidable implications in the case would affix a stigma 
which no explanation and no disclaimer could ever efface. 

It is not for us to deny that there are very upright and con- 
scientious supporters of Mr. Fillmore's nomination. To all such 
we make no allusion. But because there are such, we do not 
feel precluded from commenting upon the conduct of those of 
his supporters who, by their position, may well be suspected, 
and by their acts afford conclusive evidence that they do not be- 
long within this category. They ought not to escape rebuke. 
The cause of truth, and the fearlessness of discussion, that should 
characterize every independent journal, alike demand an exposi- 
tion of the real facts in the case. J. S. P. 



Custom- House, Boston, ) 

Collector's Office, June 4, 1852. ) 

Dear Pike : After nearly a week's absence at sea, I have your 
letters of the 27th and 29th ult. 

I accept the charge of getting up a hurrah in Massachusetts, New 
Hampshire, and Vermont, as soon as Scott is nominated ; or, rather, 
I promise to do all I can do in that line. I have already done something 
about it with the Vermont folks, and in Massachusetts we are arranging 
things. In New Hampshire I shall do what I can. 

Our greatest noise must be in Boston, and we will endeavor to have 
that go right, but you must not expect so much from us as though we 
were a Scott community. Acquiescence will be considered a virtue on 
the part of our Webster men, and therefore it may not be well to make 
so much fuss as to disturb their nerves ; but we will do all that is 
thought best under the circumstances. 



146 LETTER FROM JOIIN OTIS. [June 

When the " Life" is out, pray send me some copies. According to 
your letter, it was to be printed on the 2d inst. I have written to Fitz 
Henry to-day, and as you will see the letter, I need not repeat what I 
said to him. 

Schouler goes to Washington to day. Be sure that you get every 
thing arranged just right for the Convention. 

Your friend Evans is chosen a delegate, but he has come out for 
Scott, and I hope will make you no trouble. 

I am, truly yours, P. G., Jr. 



[From Hon. John Otis.] 

Hallowei/l, June 5, 1852. 

. . . The Webster and Fillmore men, and all the Compromise men, 
use your name very fully, and think it was very strange you should 
have been elected a delegate. It is to your honor that you are per- 
secuted in such a cause. But if the old hero is poisoned in his mind by 
such men as these, with Evans against you and his original men, I shall 
feel little heart in the work. You must see him, and let us not be 
deceived. With all due respect for the premier of General Taylor's 
cabinet, I do not want another such for General Scott. He was little 
better than old Daniel himself. I want no more Galphin and Gardner 
cabinets, and if we cannot do any better, we had better let Locofocoism 
have full swing for the next four years. Let me hear from you in this 
matter, for upon it my working very hard, even in the cause of General 
Scott, will in a measure depend. I ask nothing for myself, but I want 
to know who is to be rewarded — those who are faithful from the begin- 
ning, or those who come in only for the favors they can obtain after 
squeezing what they could from the present Administration. 

Yours truly, John Otis. 

J. S. Pike, Esq., Washington. 



[From Horace Greeley.] 

New York, June 13, 1852. 
Friend Pike : If we must have a platform, do help put a Freesoil 
plank in it. It would almost act as chloride to a compromise infection. 
I pray you look to this. It will give us five thousand votes in this State 
alone, and we may need them. It will be worth much in all the West. 
Don't forget. If they put a compromise resolve upon you, vote No 



1852] LETTERS FROM GREELEY AND DANA. 147 

on a call of the yeas and nays, and it will be neutralized. Give them 
the same privilege on Freesoil. 

I don't believe there will be a Fillmore delegate from New England, 
but a strong show for Webster. His friends really think of nominating 
him, and some who have got to vote for him fear they will do it. But 
they can't. 

Yours, Horace Greeley. 

J. S. P. 

Telegraph us every hour or two from Baltimore on Tuesday after- 
noon and afterwards. 



[From Charles A. Dana.] 

Wednesday. 

Dear Pike : I send you a little touch out of the Detroit Advertiser. 
You are getting to be the most famous man in the country, and if you 
keep on, will certainly come to something. 

Alvord begins to work the pamphlet this afternoon — not in season 
for me to send you an impression. He says he will have the whole 
done by the latter days of next week — in ample season for the purpose. 
Where do you want it delivered ? Here, or in Washington ? 

I find they have made a mistake in putting the electrotypes into the 
stereotypes, and have got Herbert's Battle of Lundy's Lane in for the 
charge at Chippewa, and vice versa. This seems well enough, however, 
and I have not had them taken out, which would have caused some 
delay. The poster will be done, I think, to-morrow. The work will 
be done in season. I shall find it necessary to cut down very much the 
matter for the poster, I suppose. This will be decided in a few minutes 
from now, when I get the final slips and know just how much you have 
laid out. 

I saw a Massachusetts Loco Freesoiler yesterday who says he shall 
take the stump for Scott in case he is not overloaded by resolutions or 
letters. The same is the case with the same men in New Hampshire, as 
we have the best assurances. For God's sake keep on the present strong 
ground. It would be a great deal better to break up the Convention in 
a row right after the nomination and before any other action could be 
had than to let the fanatics kick over the kettle. 

I have seen Blunt, who says Commodore Perry wants just such a 
man as Bayard Taylor as historiographer of the expedition, and that he 
will put him through. 

Yours ever, Dana. 



US LETTERS FROM CHARLES A. DANA. [June 

[From Charles A. Dana.] 

Dear Pike : Here's the poster ; I think it's good ; if you don't, 
I can't see how you can do any thing to help it. I have had the one 
hundred copies of poster and one hundred pamphlets sent to Sackett by 
this afternoon's mail. The lot for you in Washington will be sent by 
Adams's Express to morrow, and the lot for you in Baltimore will go by 
the same conveyance to-morrow, God willing and nothing happening to 
press or binders. Have no fear about getting them in season. You 
could not use them sooner if you had 'em, and as for gratifying any- 
body's impatient, boyish curiosity, that's of little consequence. 

If now we can steer clear of any nonsense in the form of resolutions, 
we shall put this election through with an awful majority at the North 
— New York, all New England except New Hampshire and Connecticut, 
Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois even, 
Michigan, Kentucky, California, Maryland, Delaware, may certainly 
be relied on for one hundred and sixty electoral votes or thereabouts 
for Scott without resolutions or letter. Can any thing like that be done 
with a pro-slavery platform ? No, sir ! 

Yours ever, Dana. 



[From Charles A. Dana.] 

New York, Tuesday. 

Pike : It was impossible to postpone the stereotyping. Not only 
would it have delayed the whole work, but it would have required a 
great lot of sorts, which Valentine has not. For instance, the leads are 
peculiar, and he has not enough of them for the whole book. Those of 
the first pages are needed to make up the last pages with. Accordingly, 
I have had them go ahead. If, after all the care, there are blunders, 
the Lord forgive us. 

The handbill can't be made up till the stereotyping is done. 

I can't tell till to-morrow just how much it will make. The final 
pages are not made up. 

The paragraph about the battle of Chippewa I found could not get 
in without great trouble and deranging some pages. It was not worth 
while, I thought, to make the delay. Time is getting short. 

Dana. 



1852] LETTERS FROM DANA. 140 

[From Charles A. Dana.] 

New York, Wednesday. 

Old Fellow : Here are your proofs, down to the last, which it is 
expected you will read to-morrow morning and send them back in the 
afternoon. 

You told them nothing about a frontispiece, and they had made up 
some eight or ten pages accordingly, which had to be deranged again in 
consequence — at your expense. So, also, you didn't mark in the place 
where the speech on the log was to come, and that makes eight pages 
more to be overhauled. 

You must also decide about the Battle of Lundy's Lane. I don't 
believe Herbert will do it, and therefore we must either have another 
picture made, or say that there shall be none, because the pages must be 
made up — nay, are made up already. 

I have had two more designs from Jocelyn — " Tearing Down the 
Flag," and " Visiting the Hospital." The latter I rejected in favor of 
Barnes's picture on the same subject. 

I have not been to see Alvord, as I can't discover that he has any 
thing to do till the plates are done. 

Yours, Dana. 



[From Charles A. Dana.] 

New York, Monday afternoon, June 21. 

Dear Pike : Hurrah for the nomination and . . . the platform ! 

I am going to Chicago to-night, and shall be gone a week. If you 
want any business done in my absence, send to Snow or Ripley, or write 
directly to Alvord. Of course the printing must now be put through, 
and the second set of stereotype plates made. The electrotypes are all 
ready, and Alvord will be glad to see the stereotyping smashed 
through faster than Valentine would otherwise do them. Valentine 
wants his bill. That you can send to Ripley or Snow, or give Valentine 
himself an order on Draper for the amount. 

God bless you, my dear fellow, and we'll put through the election. 
Good-by, Dana. 



[From Charles A. Dana.] 

New York, June 21, 1852, 7 p.m. 
Mr Dear Pike : I got left by the cars, and accordingly bless you 
with another letter. 



150 LETTERS FROM DANA. [June 

In the first place, the pamphlet and handbill must immediately be 
translated into German and printed with the same cuts. 

The translation can be done here, I should think, and the stereotyp- 
ing to as good adavntage as anywhere. Jacobi, the publisher of the 
Allgemeine Zeitung, could find you good men to do the former, though 
if I were at home it would be better for me to attend to it. Ludwig, or 
Angell & Engell, might do the printing. The latter, I should think, 
would be the men. They will do the composition from the MSS., and 
make it ready for the stereotyper, for forty-five cents a thousand, with 
new types and all right. Their office is right by the Tribune — in fact, 
up the same eternal flight of stairs. 

Now, in the second place, you must make the Tribune office the 
headquarters for the distribution of all the Scott documents, lives, 
handbills, etc. Of course we must have them at a discount from the 
price at which they are sold to clubs and other patriots. But no matter 
about terms ; only let the thing be done. It will be for our advantage 
and for the universal good. So put it through. 

Commodore Perry won't take Bayard, or won't agree to. He says, 
however, that if B should be at Hong Kong when he is there, he should 
be very happy to see him. 

Once more, three cheers for Scott ! 

Answer this letter to Greeley. I shall get off to-morrow for a week's 
freedom. Yours ever, C. A. D. 



[From Charles A. Dana.] 

Friday. 

Dear Pike : The matter you wrote for the Life proper is thirty-two 
pages, without the testimonials, or letters, or any thing. Accordingly, I 
have told them to take out the leads from the last dozen pages in order 
to make room. If you don't like this, swear your bellyful, but you 
can't help it. The thing is put through, and what you may choose to 
say is a matter of perfect indifference. 

Please to find out right off and let me know just when Commodore 
Perry will be at Macao with his thundering old fleet. Also how long 
they will stay there. Also about the order for Bayard Taylor, in what 
capacity, and on what terms, he can get aboard. I want to have 
the whole thing fixed up so as to send to Bayard by next Wednesday's 
steamer. 

I have discovered that I am necessary to you. Without me who 
would take the devil out of your letters and add a genteel air of modera- 



1852] WHIG CONVENTION. 151 

tion to their contents ? Nobody. You would be a done-up man, 
ruined by your own exuberant greatness. Now I foresee your destiny. 
It is to be President which I shall make you. Be grateful, then, be- 
forehand. Dana. 



THE WAY THE WHIG CONVENTION PASSED THE COMPROMISE 

RESOLUTIONS. 

[From the New York Tribune.'] 

Washington, Tuesday, June 22, 1852. 
It is important that the true history of the introduction, con- 
sideration, and passage of the Whig platform in 1852 should go 
on to the record. !SI o report of the proceedings that 1 have seen 
gives it. The record states the introduction and reading of the 
resolutions by Mr. Ashmun, and the proceedings thereon up to 
near the time of their passage. It then proceeds as follows : 

' ' After points of order and some stirring scenes, which time will not 
permit us to narrate, the vote was taken on the platform resolutions, which 
were adopted by a vote of yeas 227 to nays 66, as follows : Maine, 4 yeas, 
4 nays," etc. 

The resolutions were read once to the Convention and then 
taken possession of by the Secretary. Thereupon the Conven- 
tion listened with comparative quiet to Mr. Choate. Mr. Ander- 
son, of Ohio, and Mr. Botts. Mr. Choate's speech was a disap- 
pointment. Mr. Anderson spoke because he is a good speaker, 
and had no objection the Convention should know it. But he 
made no mark, and only showed a little very shallow philosophy. 
Mr. Botts surpassed himself. When Mr. Botts concluded his 
remarks he moved the previous question. Several of the Maine 
delegation had the benefit of perusing the copy of the Compro- 
mise resolution, and none of them, as I have reason to believe, 
except the Chairman of the Delegation (Mr. Evans) desired its 
passage. When Mr. Botts moved the previous question, he was 
asked to withdraw it. Mr. Botts declined on the ground that if 
he gave way in one case he should be compelled to in others, and 
thus delay in passing the platform would follow, but declaring 
that the call for the previous question did not interfere with a 
demand for a division. 



152 HOW THE RESOLUTIONS WERE ADOPTED. [June 

When the call for the vote of the States on the adoption of 
the platform was begun, as it was immediately, amid great uproar 
and excitement, and the general cry of everybody that it was 
best to let the platform go through, rather than hazard Scott's 
nomination by any resistance, except by a silent vote, a division 
of the question was demanded. Not only the majority of the 
Convention, but the President and Secretary, were in a state of 
great heat and excitement, and pre-determined to force the plat- 
form down the throat of the Convention, nolens volens, without 
giving any chance for resistance, and without reference to the 
rights of the minority. While the demand for a division of the 
resolutions was pressed there were hisses and cheers and all sorts 
of noises, and call to order by the President, and over all the 
leathern throat of the Secretary bawling at the top of a stento- 
rian voice for the vote of the States, in total disregard of pro- 
priety and of the authority of the presiding officer. At length* 
however, the ear of the President was gained, who finally very 
reluctantly listened to the demand for a division. There was a 
palpable determination on the part of the Convention and its 
officers to dragoon the minority on the Compromise resolution. 
Everybody understood this in advance, and no one, therefore, 
felt inclined to subject himself to indignity needlessly ; and this 
disinclination was heightened by the reflection that any de- 
termined effort of resistance would damage Scott's chances, 
already weakened by outrageous exclusions of delegates friendly 
to him, by the corrupting influences of Wall Street and State 
Street capitalists, by the shameless prostitution of government 
patronage, and by the implacable opposition of Southern fll- 
libusterism. 

It was under these circumstances that the vote on the plat- 
form was demanded and the roll of States called. In the 
height of the disturbance the vote of Maine was announced by 
the chairman of the delegation (Mr. Evans) as standing 4 yeas 
and 4 nays. Amid the tumult the roll-call went on. Subse- 
quently I discovered that the vote of Maine had not been cor- 
rectly reported, but that it stood 5 against the resolutions and 
but 3 for them ; and as, in my judgment, Maine is deserving of 
high honor for resisting the tide of political demoralization that 
swept over the New England delegates on this question in Con- 



1852] LETTER FROM SAMUEL HAIOHT 153 

vention, I beg to record here the names of that majority of her 
delegates who went against the Compromise resolutions. They 
are as follows : William Pitt Fessenden, Nathan D. Appleton, 
D. C. Magoun, John Trask, Jr., and James S. Pike. 

J. S. P. 



[From Samuel Haight] 

Newburg, N. Y., October 21, 1852. 

Jas. S. Pike, Esq., Dear Sir: Our mutual friend Horace Greeley 
has been talking to me about you in reference to purchasing an interest 
in the Pittsburg Gazette, of which I am half owner. I am desirous of 
going abroad, and have offered my half interest for sale. If, however, 
I could get the proper man to come in, I would retain my present in- 
terest and purchase, or rather get him to purchase, the other half in- 
terest, which can be had, as my partner is not in good health and is 
anxious to retire to the country. The character and standing of the 
paper is no doubt familiar to you ; and to a person fully capable to 
make a paper to suit the present age, it offers an opportunity not often 
to be met with. Mr. Greeley knows well its character, and thinks it 
one of the best openings in the country. I contemplate leaving this 
city for Pittsburg next week ; and in case of your desiring a personal 
conference, could meet you at New York or Philadelphia. 

I am, very respectfully, yours, etc., Sam'l Haight. 



[From Charles A. Dana.] 

Wednesday, October, 1852. 

Dear Pike : Here's a letter for you which I hope will be consoling, 
for somehow I fancy you must stand in need of comfort. For my part, 
I have got myself into a state of true philosophy, but you, with those 
horrid Calvinistic notions oppressing your soul, and the dread of wrath 
to come blazing before your eyes, can hardly hope for such tranquillity 
of mind. 

I don't know how it is, but my presentiments all favor our being 
licked, and no ciphering and no argufying can make them any better. 
So I am ready for that, and have set about sharpening my knives, and 
getting out my war-paint, and practicing the battle-yell for the sharp 
work and joyous which is to come after. 

And so God bless you. Ever yours, C. A. Dana. 



154 LETTER FROM WM. H. SEWARD. [Dec. 

[From Wm. H. Seward.] 

Washington, December 7, 1852. 

My Dear Pike : Accept my thanks for the magnificent gift you 
have sent me. I have tried the fruit, and I find them first-rate. This 
result confirms me in my opinion that on exotics General Scott's latest 
opinions are the soundest. 

I hear that you go into the Tribune. I rejoice in this, for your 
sake and for the sake of the paper. I hope you will ring the bugle 
loud on this Kentucky election case. It is really the first thing touching 
all the Whigs of the winter that we have had in a twelvemonth. 

Faithfully, always, your friend, William H. Seward. 

J. S. Pike, Esq., Washington, D. C. 



SPOILS CUBA. 

[From the New York Tribune.] 

Washington, December 10, 1852. 

The last session was spent principally in preparing for the 
Presidential contest, and this will be mainly occupied in dispos- 
ing of its fruits. This fact may denote but a narrow and vulgar 
range of thought in our public men, but we reckon it to be a 
fact nevertheless. Douglas and Weller, of the Senate, have both 
set forth in their own chosen way their statesmanlike and far- 
reaching views of the character of the late contest, the summary 
of which is, " We have beaten the Whigs, and now let's have 
the offices." 

Funeral honors will be paid by Congress to Mr. Webster. 
The obsequies of the Whig party will not be celebrated till after 
the 4th of March. 

The Cuba bubble has utterly burst. We do not see but our 
Whig editors who have been prompted to nurse this bantling of 
promise, lest they should be hereafter accused of inhospitality 
toward it, will now have to abandon the little wretch as quite 
unworthy of the pains they professed to bestow upon it. The 
ideas lately set forth in a number of editorial articles of the 
Charleston Mercury, are those which must, sooner or later, pre- 
vail throughout the entire South. The editor of that paper is a 
little mealy-mouthed on the subject, but the gist of the article is 
that we cannot get the island peaceably, and if it were to come 
as the result of any revolutionary or fillibustering movement, the 



1852] THE ANNEXATION OF CUBA. 155 

blacks would be inevitably emancipated in the process, and that 
we should thus find ourselves with another St. Domingo on our 
hands. 

Such is, beyond all question, the true view of the case, and 
such is the view which has been entertained by sagacious men 
from the beginning of the heroic exploits of our fillibusters to 
wrest the island from Spain. For our part we have never looked 
upon the scheme of getting Cuba under the auspices of the 
ragged tatterdemalions who have it in charge, though headed by 
the " Little Giant " himself, as other than a scheme of utter folly 
and imbecility. Nobody who longs for the emancipation of the 
slaves in that island, or who aims at abolition in general, could 
have any other desire than to see it prosper, or would fail to en- 
courage it. We have thus looked with complacency upon the 
spasmodic efforts to promote the designs of the fillibusters, by 
whomsoever made, and have been glad to see such gentlemen as 
Judge Douglas stirring the embers of a grand black conflagra- 
tion, foreseeing nothing, certainly, but that the mischief-makers 
would be pretty apt to be blown where they belonged, and which 
place shall be nameless ; and being by no means sure whether 
good or evil would ultimately result therefrom ; being willing, 
however, perhaps even anxious to see any project prosper that 
promised a step in advance toward the universal emancipation of 
the African race. But we never had the least faith or ajmrehen- 
sion that any such scheme as the annexation of Cuba to our Con- 
federacy of States would be accomplished in this our day and 
generation. Unless Spain would consent to a cession, which was 
never probable, and which consent has been plumply refused, 
and now seems further off than ever, we reckon the chances of 
the annexation of Cuba to be just as good as the chances for the 
annexation of Hayti, and no better. And probably both will 
come together in the fulness of time — twin black sisters — lovely 
gems of the Antilles. We would that " Scripture Dick" should 
be alive to pronounce the welcome to these curly -headed blos- 
soms of the Caribbean Sea, and to sing the epithalamium upon 
the occasion of the marriage ceremony with our Anglo-Saxon re- 
public. But alas ! this cannot be, for he will be dead and worms 
will have eaten him before that day shall have arrived. 

J. S. P. 



156 



STORY OF THE DIPLOMATISTS. 



[Dec. 



WAGES OF DIPLOMACY. 

[Prom the New York Tribune of December 22.] 

We published yesterday the principal portions of a corre- 
spondence emanating from our foreign ministers in response to 
inquiries addressed to them by the Secretary of State in regard to 
the expense of living at the various courts to which they are ac- 
credited. 

It will have been perused by our readers, we doubt not, and 
have afforded them both instruction and amusement. The cor- 
respondence is amusing in that it gives us a glimpse of the pecu- 
liar characteristics of a large number of our diplomats in respect 
of a phase of their characters seldom exposed to public view. 

By the letters we see, for example, that Mr. Lawrence is a 
liberal off-hand man in his personal expenses, and goes for good 
living and a high style with a devil-may-care-for-the-expense air 
which is quite taking. He says he spends over twenty thousand 
dollars a year. "We presume he spent double that sum, for he 
made a good show of rivalling the British nobility in his entertain- 
ments. He could afford it on a private fortune of one or two 
millions. 

Mr. Eives is snug and lugubrious. He declares that the cost 
of living in Paris in proper style is dreadfully expensive. We 
don't know how he discovered this, for we have never under- 
stood that he was over-liberal in his living, or ever spent a red 
cent that the most thrifty frugality could save. However, here 
is his summing up, the aggregate of which is not presented in his 
letter : 



House rent $4,000 

Carriage hire 1,400 

Fuel 1,200 

Eatables 3.000 

Servants 1,500 



Candles, washing and groceries. .$3,000 
Personal expenses 3,000 

Total expenses. ..$17,100 



Now we don't like to intimate any thing to the prejudice of 
our Minister at the Court of Versailles, but really he tells some 
tough stories. Some Virginia hogs, we are sure, could be ex- 
ported to France at a profit if Mr. Kives's quotations are authen- 
tic. 

Neil S. Brown says he lives singly for $6000 per annum. He 
has a family, however, to support at home. As he declares his 



1852] THEIR EXTRAORDINARY EXPERIENCES. 157 

judgment to be that every foreign minister " ought to have a 
family," he don't hesitate to go for $12,000 as a fair compensa- 
tion. He recommended this on the ground that St. Petersburg 
is ' ' artificially built and artificially sustained. ' ' But what city 
of Europe is not " artificially" built ? 

We have no natural productions of this kind on this side the 
water, and had no idea that Europe was any better off. But 
Mr. Brown's remark imports that we must be laboring under a 
mistake. Mr. Brown affectingly observes that no one knows but 
those who have tried it, the restraint which the present rates of 
pay imposes. He says he has spent but $6000 a year. 

Mr. Folsom is very particular in his bill of particulars, as will 
have been seen. He gives the items, and is solemn in the assev- 
eration that they are true. An extra oath was not necessary to 
make his declarations believed. He says the Hague is the dear- 
est capital on the Continent. Mr. Rives more than intimates the 
same thing of Paris, and Mr. Barringer says ditto of Madrid. 
Indeed, the minister to Spain, in enumerating the " necessaries" 
of life, all of which he declares are very dear at the Spanish capi- 
tal, enumerates " water" among the items. Wood he quotes at 
a cent a pound. We presume that this article would be soaked 
before the sale, but that the high price of water forbids. But a 
more ludicrous charge than all is one he enumerates of getting 
his carriage from Cadiz to Madrid. This job cost $300. We 
can scarcely estimate from this what the land carriage would be 
of any object that did not go on wheels. But we need not go 
into further detail. The correspondence is before our readers, 
who will make their own comments. One aspect it wears, how- 
ever, to which we must call attention. This is the touching 
spectacle it affords of the self-denying patriotism of our foreign 
ministers in consenting to fill places under the government which 
compel such heavy drafts upon their private fortunes. 



CUBA ANNEXATION. 

[From the New York Tribune of December 28.] 

Every brainless chatterbox in the country considers himself 
fully qualified to determine the question of Cuban annexation. 



158 THE CUBA BUBBLE. [Dec 

The press and the magazines sing of Cuba — Cuba — Cuba — per- 
petually. And the strain is everywhere the same. Cuba is to 
be annexed to the United States. The wiseacres do not pretend 
to say just what day or what month it will happen, but that it 
will be annexed is reckoned to be a dead certainty. It is every- 
where taken for granted that Cuba is coming. Mr. Allen, of 
Ohio, when he was in the Senate, used to roar periodically on 
foreign affairs, and on those occasions he always predicted two 
things. One was, that we were on the eve of a tremendous 
fight with England, just to see which would whip, and the 
other, that we were going to annex Cuba nolens volens. His 
argument for annexation was novel, but conclusive. It was that 
the Gulf of Mexico was the mouth of the United States ; that 
the island of Cuba was a tongue lying in that mouth ; and that 
every mouth had a right to its own tongue. 

Mr. Mason, of Virginia, in his late speech in the Senate on 
this subject, though the drift and object of it was a blow at 
fillibusterism, sings the same tune of ultimate annexation. " To 
be sure/' says the senator, "we cannot have Cuba now.'' Oh 
no, for it belongs to Spain, and Spain don't want to part with it 
just yet, but whenever she does it will inevitably become ours — 
of course it will. So, gentlemen fillibusters, just make your- 
selves easy, and don't hurry what is so inevitable. Don't shake 
the tree while the fruit is green. It is thus that even Southern 
men, who foresee all the embarrassments and mischievous conse- 
quences of Cuban annexation, who now resist it even, and who 
cannot for the life of them give any possible view of the final 
effects of Cuban annexation, that would not affright the slavery 
interest of the country to the utmost degree, feel impelled by 
what seems to be the popular sentiment of the country in its 
favor, to echo, after a fashion, the parrot cry of which we speak. 
The Charleston Mercury is about the only bold spoken organ of 
Southern interests and intelligent Southern opinion that we 
know of, which don't hesitate to deprecate the annexation of 
Cuba, not only now but hereafter, and on grounds that must, in 
our judgment, inevitably constrain the action of the South on 
this subject. 

Putnam's New Monthly Magazine for January, 1853, just 
published, has an article on Cuba, written by a gentleman who 



1852] ANNEXATION INSISTED ON. 159 

lias published a work on that country, and who is, of course, 
familiar with his subject, offers the same stereotyped view of the 
question that is in everybody's mouth. He says : 

" Still, what of the future ? Cuba will become a part of the United States. 
The how or the when, it is useless to predict. Political events have tran- 
spired so rapidly within the last few years, that 

" ' That of an hour's age doth hiss the speaker.' 

We are borne onward by a force which seems hastening some great con- 
summation. If all do not agree as to the result which these changes are to 
bring, no one can shut his eyes to the changes themselves. They have mul- 
tiplied within the year ; they are multiplying ; they will'continue to multi- 
ply. The conservative and the radical — the ultra Whig and the ultra Demo- 
crat — are all overwhelmed by the resistless course of things, if they stop 
even but a momen; to contemplate it. What is to be done? Shall we 
attempt to stay this sweeping current, and be carried away by it ? or shall 
we rather do what we may to control and direct it ?" 

Here is the same kind of talk that is found everywhere. 

If we ask the reason why Cuba is to be annexed to this coun- 
try, we are met by some such reply as that of Mr. Boanerges 
Allen, which we have quoted. We are told that Cuba must be 
ours because she is close at our doors, because "she is on the 
high road to our auriferous regions," because we are bound to 
annex every thing in our neighborhood, whether islands or con- 
tinents, till we touch the Pole on the north, and Terra del Fuego 
on the south ; and the Lord knows the limit that the universal 
annexationists prescribe to us on the west. If we do not mis- 
take, even Senator Seward, in a speech last winter, threw out a 
suggestion which looked toward China. But before we pluck 
the flowery empire to add to our proposed nosegay of nations, we 
have no small job to gather up the innumerable islands of the 
Pacific, those verdant oases in the great wilderness of waters that 
separates the Asiatic continent from ours. For it certainly will 
be expected that, in our glorious process of expansion and accre- 
tion, we shall not fail to embrace every thing in our way, as we 
sweep westward on our Manifest Destiny career. 

Now, although it may expose us to the imputation of being 
very unprogressive and short-sighted, we must beg to insist upon 
our doubts about there being any good prospect at all of the an- 
nexation of Cuba to our confederacy of States. 



160 CUBA AS A FREE STATE. [Dec. 

The truth is, the whole subject of Cuban annexation is 
treated by those who advocate it, without reference to the great 
element in the case which will inevitably control the destiny of 
that island. We allude to the black population. 

If Cuba is to come into the Union, how is she to come ? Is 
it to be as a slave or as a free State. We understand what the 
long-headed contrivers of the plot mean well enough, but the 
accomplishment of their designs is quite another thing. Now 
we are of opinion that Cuba can never come to us as a slave 
State. In the first place, the Wilmot Proviso men would insist 
upon the Ordinance of 1787 as a condition precedent of her ad- 
mission as a State. 

But secondly, and mainly, our reliance is chiefly upon Spain 
herself, who, we are quite sure, will never let Cuba slip from 
her grasp except in the last extremity, and then not till she has 
decreed emancipation to its slave population. She holds the 
island securely to-day by virtue of this very threat. If we take 
Cuba at all, therefore, we must take her as a free State, contain- 
ing half a million of very black and very ignorant persons, who 
would by the process become our fellow-citizens, entitled to 
choose in regard to their government, laws, rulers, etc. , etc. It 
is quite likely they would choose a black governor, black judges, 
black representatives to Congress, black every thing. Now our 
impression is very decided that a large majority of the people 
of this country consider that a great avalanche of black voters 
upon us is not a thing to be coveted. We believe this is 
the public sentiment both of the North and the South. And 
thus it is that we, instead of looking upon the annexation of 
Cuba as a thing certain, see little or no probability of its accom- 
plishment. Cuba free we would not take. The South would 
be against it, and the North would but slightly favor it. Cuba 
as a slave country we cannot be permitted to have. This we 
believe to be a fixed decree of the proud Castilians who control it. 
It is at least a fixed and immovable purpose of all Wilmot Pro- 
viso men. 

Our Manifest Destiny men, the Cuba Inevitables, don't come 
to a close hug with the question. They view it in the dim dis- 
tant haze. They say we are to have Cuba somehow and some- 
time (though they don't know just how or just when), simply be- 



1852] HA TTI AND JAMAICA. 161 

cause we are destined to have every thing contiguous to our ex- 
isting territory. Now if this be true of Cuba it is true also of 
the other West India Islands, and especially of Hayti and 
Jamaica. If we must have Cuba because of contiguity, then 
Hayti and Jamaica, because both are nearer to Cuba than Cuba 
is to the United States. 

The fact is, the chief foundation of all this modern sentiment 
that Cuba is to become part of the United States is to be found 
in the early views of our statesmen upon the question ; views. 
which gained foothold before the more modern developments in 
relation to African slavery. These developments have essentially 
modified, and indeed changed, the whole aspect of the question. 
If Mr. J. Q. Adams were now alive, and at the head of the 
State Department, we are very sure we should find him steering 
in quite a different direction from that taken by our own shallow 
Manifest Destiny men, who are now quoting him. 

We believe that the finger of destiny points to an issue en- 
tirely different from that so confidently anticipated by our uni- 
versal annexationists. 



102 EDWARD EVERETT'S ABLE DISPATCH. [Jan. 



1853. 



mr. Everett's dispatch on cttba. 

[From the New York Tribune of January 10, 1853.] 

Mr. Everett will have surprised the country by the ability of 
his letter on the proposed tripartite convention in reference to 
Cuba, which we published yesterday. Mr. Everett has long en- 
joyed a high reputation for scholarly attainments, but never for 
the wide and comprehensive views of an enlarged statesmanship. 
Age and reflection seem to have worked kindly upon him in the 
classic retreats of Harvard, and he comes forth now in the 
ripeness of matured manhood, casting off the strait-jacket of 
frigid conservatism and provincialism that wraps that ancient seat 
of learning, and takes his position before the country and the 
world as a man fully appreciating the position and destiny of his 
nation ; and lending renewed emphasis, by the vigor of his 
thought, the soundness of his judgment, the extent and accuracy 
of his knowledge, to the genuine American spirit of the hour. 
There is in his communication to the Count de Sartiges a full 
and hearty recognition of the true character, temper, and destiny 
of the American Republic ; not reluctantly extorted, but genially 
acknowledged and presented to the eye of the world under an en- 
lightened and liberal view of international affairs that must secure 
the acknowledgment of every one, of its intrinsic justice and 
truth, whether or not assent, on the part of other nations, be 
yielded to the conclusions to which his matter so significantly 
points. 

In this glowing and remarkable dispatch, Mr. Everett has cer- 
tainly shown himself to be the man of the day and the hour for 



1853] DISSENT FROM THE SECRETARY. 163 

the place he occupies. We certainly shall not object to Mr. 
Everett's being sent to the Senate, in view of such a display of 
the harmonious union of conservative and progressive ideas as is 
exhibited in this communication. Indeed, if a change in the ex- 
isting senatorial representation of Massachusetts is to be made, 
we give our suffrage unequivocally to Mr. Everett. 

Yet we do not assent to all the Secretary's conclusions. We 
■do not believe in the existence of an inevitable necessity which is 
to make Cuba one of the States of the American Union. And 
we look upon the reasoning which professedly points to this re- 
sult, drawn from our territorial progress thus far, and the capa- 
bilities of indefinite expansion which belong to our federal sys- 
tem, as superficial and unsound. Cuba is in no more fit condi- 
tion to become a State and be admitted into our confederacy than 
is Hayti or Jamaica. The predominant black population in all 
of them constitutes an insuperable bar to their incorporation into 
our system. Populous territory filled with black, mixed, de- 
graded and ignorant, or inferior races, we do not want. The 
sturdy and encroaching growth of the robust and enterprising 
population which may most be appropriately termed American, 
will make head in any district of country which is but sparsely 
peopled, and finally supplant the existing population. There are 
many points on this continent where this will be done. The 
vastness of comparatively unoccupied tracts of country within the 
•existing limits of Mexico, the feeble States on and about the 
Isthmus, invite the spread of our people and will allure the shel- 
ter of our flag. Nature waits to be subdued in virgin latitudes 
on various quarters of this continent, almost impressed by human 
footsteps. Here we shall go forth and colonize and acquire, and 
elevate to the position of independence and nationality. But it 
does not follow that because our destiny points to progress like 
this that we are to spread a drag-net around every island and foot 
of terrestrial space about us. Blacks, and mulattoes, and quad- 
roons, and mestizoes we have enough of — and more than enough. 
We want no more ebony additions to the Eepublic. We want 
no more mahogany adornings of this character. The African 
race has got a foothold on this continent, and here it is likely to 
endure. Its fecundity in tropical latitudes seems to forbid the 
expectation that it is ever to be rooted out. It has gone on rap- 



164 SENATOR BADGER. [Jan. 

idly increasing its numbers through hundreds of years. "What 
has been in the past we may fairly assume will be in the future. 

But it is otherwise with the native aud mixed breeds, and es- 
pecially with the bastard races of Spanish and French extraction. 
These hold their place evidently only awaiting the advent among 
them of the great American race. Before its all- conquering en- 
terprise and energy those races will fade and disappear. But to 
the negro, it is evident that some territory on this hemisphere 
must be allotted. "We would cheerfully compromise the demand 
of this race for room, by yielding the whole of the West India 
Islands for their occupation, if thereby we could relieve the con- 
tinent of the burden and hindrance to its advance and develop- 
ment which our present black population presents. But we fear 
that not only must we allot the islands of the Caribbean Sea to 
them, but a portion also of our own territory lying upon the Gulf 
of Mexico. But these are considerations and problems which we 
are not now called upon to determine and which time alone will 
solve. They are germane, however, to our present purpose, 
which is to enforce the sentiment that we cannot as a nation or a 
confederacy of States have every thing on this hemisphere, and 
ought not to desire it, and that among the things that we ought 
not to want, and wanting, are not likely to get, is the Island of 
Cuba. 



BADGER. 
[From the New York Tribune of January 12, 1853.] 

This iron-heeled Old Fogy is nominated for the Supreme 
Bench to till the vacancy therein existing, and we rather hope 
his nomination will be confirmed. He is a lawyer of surpassing 
abilities, and in the main, we believe, an upright man. Judge 
McLean being once asked asked whom he considered the ablest 
lawyer practising before the Supreme Court, answered, " George 
E. Badger." Yet is Mr. Badger by no means a great man. 
But it is by no means necessary to be a great man in order to be 
a great lawyer. Mr. Badger's qualifications for the place to 
which he is nominated are a tough, hard, wiry, mental organi- 
zation, great clearness and distinctness of perception, method, 



1853] BADGER'S CURIOUS CHARACTERISTICS. 165 

exactness, and strong grasp of mind, with a good knowledge of 
the law. He is eminently clear and logical in statement and 
argument, and, admitting his premises, you are very likely to 
find yourself forced to go with him to Ins conclusions. 

He is a trained polemic, and plunges into a controversy with 
as good a will as a Newfoundland dog springs into the water. 
He is an amateur theologian, a lay preacher of Episcopacy, and 
on one occasion fairly walloped the clerical robes off the Bishop 
of his diocese. Indeed, nothing suits his tastes better than to 
wield the club of argumentation for the mere satisfaction and 
delight of knocking the brains out of an antagonist. 

As a statesman he is of no account, and as a politician detest- 
able. He lacks breadth and comprehensiveness of view, and a 
catholic, round-about sense essential to a man of affairs. His 
mind ran in the rut of the law so long before he came into pub- 
lic life that he always gets out of gearing whenever he is wanted 
for a pull out of the beaten track. His nature is gnarled and 
stubbed, and refuses to bend to new forms. It lacks flexibility 
and plasticity to a degree that unfits him for genial association 
either in public or private life. In all statesman-like qualities he 
is the antipodes of Mr. Mangum, his colleague, who is generally 
as right and as wise as Mr Badger is wrong and jDerverse. It is 
indeed a wonder how he ever found his way into political life at 
all. He ought never to have been translated into the sphere of 
politics. He has not a single agreeable or winning qualification 
as a public man. Wrong-headed, crabbed, intolerant, dogmati- 
cal, inveterate in his prejudices, dictatorial and unmannerly in 
his deportment, we have often wondered how he ever got into 
his present position. Some degree of accommodation of mind 
or manner to popular ideas or tastes, is usually necessary to ena- 
ble a man to reach political position in this country. But Badger 
has neither. He is reserved, aristocratic and exclusive, exhibit- 
ing an offensive prominence of the idea of caste, which is often 
ludicrously visible in the decayed, shabby gentility of old Vir- 
ginia gentlemen. He was born for a slave-driver and could 
never be more agreeably occupied than in wielding the lash over 
a lazy negro on a cotton plantation, or hazing a fugitive. On 
the whole, we don't know and cannot imagine a more genuine 
and spotless example of the breed Hunker. 



166 THE MANIFEST-DESTINY MEN. [Jan. 

Yet, notwithstanding all this, we don't think Mr. Badger 
would make a bad judge. 



MANIFEST DESTINY. 
[From the New York Tribune of January 21, 1853.] 

We should think the Manifest Destiny statesmen would get 
tired of hearing themselves talk. This playing of the magpie is 
tiresome. If they would vary the tune, or enliven their dis- 
course by something new, it would be more endurable. If they 
would favor us with the eighth part of a new idea, or refresh us 
with a speculation that has not been worn utterly threadbare, 
we would rejoice and take courage. But this eternal iteration 
and reiteration of the same old song sets one's teeth on edge. 
We had as lief listen to the filing of a mill-saw. When are we 
to have relief ? Will not the Manifest Destiny statesmen die to 
oblige us ? In the ordinary course of nature it will be long be- 
fore we shall get rid of the existing crop. Unless we can have 
the aid of the cholera or some other agent of translation, our 
case is forlorn and well nigh desperate. They stand round 
about us with grave and sage looks — the solemn procession con- 
fronts us at every turn ; as we prolong our gaze, they look more 
lugubrious and dismal than the chaps that froze Tarn O'Shanter's 
soul in that memorable visit of his to Alloway's Kirk, some 
years ago. They grow to be grim spectres, with skinny, witch- 
like fingers, bare arms, ragged vestments — carrying lurid torches 
— and whips of scorpions, with a flaunting motto "havoc, and 
spoil, and ruin are my gain." Their turgid nostrils breathe, 
and their bursting eyeballs glare upon us. We look again, and 
find they have come like shadows, and so depart. They have all 
dissolved into thin air. The Manifest Destiny men have be- 
come mere wreaths of smoke to the imagination. And so they 
are in fact. 

One of these gentlemen spoke in the Senate on Tuesday. It 
was General Lewis Cass. He canted, descanted and incanted, 
and his incantations brought up the same old figures. We had the 
same spectre of ' ' inevitable war ' ' that the old gentleman used 
to frighten the women with during the Oregon controversy. 
But then the General was younger and the " inevitable " of that 



1853] GENERAL LEWIS CASS. 167 

day had a more distinct outline and wore a fiercer aspect than 
now. The General shook in his shoes, and was then plainly in 
earnest as he declaimed upon " Inevitable War with England " 
as the sure result of the Oregon boundary question. Now he is 
less in earnest. He is simply clinging to the skirts of an idea 
that once possessed him thoroughly. He is making feeble and 
awkward efforts to replace a mutilated bugaboo that he originally 
put up, but which fell from its pole long ago. The old gentle- 
man may waste himself in the effort to get it into a conspicuous 
position again, but he is doomed to fail. 

We do not wish to intimate anything to Mr. Cass's discredit. 
He is an old man. His career is about run. But a short time 
will elapse before he must sing his nunc dimittis. We cannot 
impute to him unworthy motives. He professes to be a Chris- 
tian. We think he is, with qualifications. But he made a silly 
filibustering speech on Tuesday. It was without merit or force 
in idea or expression. It was a poor rehash of old meats without 
pepper or salt. He made it, we have no doubt, at Mr. Soule's 
instigation. The Frenchman wanted a sort of snow-plough to 
clear his way, and so he put forward the old gentleman. Mr. 
Cass was always dull and heavy. He is now logy and flatulent. 
So have we seen old horses pushed on to the course and driven 
past their powers. Whip and spur made them save their dis- 
tance, but with what heavings and noises would they go over the 
track ! 

We cannot think of soberly criticising in detail this effort of 
the venerable General. It is part of himself. It is one chip out 
of the log. The General is old — so is the speech. The General 
is spongy, so is the speech. The General is tremulous and fussy 
— so is the speech. He is full of doubts and fears — so is the 
speech. He is possessed by vague apprehension of wars and 
rumors of wars — so is the speech. He is all " mops and brooms ' ' 
on England, and France, and Manifest Destiny, and " inevitable 
war." So is the speech. Clouds and darkness gather round his 
mental vision as the night of his life approaches, and his thoughts 
become muddy. So is his speech. The General is feeble and 
tottering. So ' is his speech. Why, what statesman not in his 
dotage would think of inferring the intentions of the French 
Government from a fugitive publication in a newspaper, contain- 



168 LETTER FROM THOMAS CORWIN. [Feb. 

ing the extravagant vagaries of a moon-struck speculator like 
Monsieur Dupasquier du Dommartin ? Or to infer the policy 
of the English Government from a dashing magazine article of 
some hare-brained aspirant for notoriety ? Yet upon no better 
or more solid ground than this, does General Cass gravely affirm 
the policy of both these governments in respect of their future 
action upon this continent, and call upon Congress for a vote of 
defiance ! 

It is said that old men are good counsellors. But not quaking 
men. Mr. Cass is a quaking man. He always was. He could 
always see what was not to be seen. He does now. He said in 
1848 and 1849 that " war is inevitable." But it did not come. 
He sees now that England and France are conspiring to arrest 
the growth and progress of this mighty and rapidly growing 
Republic ; and that unless we forthwith order them off the con- 
tinent, nobody can tell what mischief may happen. Mr. Cass 
was frightened before at nothing. He is alarmed now at less 
than nothing. Mr. Cass has had his day. Let him retire. We 
shall be rid of at least one of the Manifest Destiny statesmen, a 
leading characteristic of all of whom is that they love to dwell 
upon the vague and uncertain things of the future, rather than 
devote themselves to the discharge of the vital practical duties of 
to-day. 



[From Thomas Corvvin, Secretary of the Treasury.] 

Washington City, February 12, 1853. 

Dear Sir : As I never read newspapers except such as are marked 
and sent me, I only know what my friends write or think of me by 
accident. My attention was yesterday casually directed to an article in 
the Union commenting on a letter in the Tribune from your Washing- 
ton correspondent. I refer to the Union of Friday (yesterday). 

I have now only to ask who the writer of the Tribune letter is, and 
whether his method of treating the subject of the letter is considered by 
the editors of the Tribune just and proper towards those whose public 
conduct is thus arraigned. As this is probably the very last instance in 
which I shall ever make this sort of inquiry, of either political friend or 
foe, I hope I may not be considered presumptuous if I indulge the hope 
of a prompt and full reply. 

Very respectfully, Thos. Corwin. 

James S. Pike, New York Citv. 



1853] COLLAPSE OF A POLITICAL BALLOON. 169 

FILIBUSTERISM ON THE EBB. 

[From the New York Tribune of February 17.] 

Young America has spoken in the Senate. And what does 
Young America in the Senate say ? Well, as near to nothing as 
can be. The big balloon of Manifest Destiny collapses, and 
flaps about like a sloop's mainsail in a calm. The gale is over, 
the kite-string has broken, and Young America drifts helter- 
skelter in the sky, or, changing the figure, scuds back, like 
hens running for a shed in a shower. Filibusterism is no- 
where. Soule and Ned Marshall and Douglas and George Law 
and Sanders and a number of others, big and little, that started 
just after the presidential election, to raise the wind on this no- 
tion of Manifest Destiny in general, and Cuba Annexation in 
particular, have made as great a miscarriage in their efforts as 
Lopez himself did. Undertaking to set more sail, they have 
had all their canvas blown away. They went aloft on the rat- 
lines, with great show and pretensions, to hoist their wind-bags, 
and have not only lost them overboard, but have barely saved 
their own bacon by coming down by the run on the standing rig- 
ging of the ship. 

This figurative mode of expression must be excused. These 
brilliant Filibusters come before us so in flashes and streaks 
that we can only deal with them in tropes and figures of a flashy 
description. It were as sensible to attempt to apply geometri- 
cal measurement to a fog bank as to deal specifically with the 
vapors these gassy fellows generate. They are as ridiculous as 
the Millerites, who put on their ascension robes, and gathered 
crowds, while they climbed into high trees to take their flight, 
and who leaped only to break their necks, or to stick fast in the 
mud. 

Mr. Ned Marshall started first to " blaze" out the road for 
Young America to take which would lead to Cuba, and after 
going all around Eobin Hood's barn, ended in the lame and im- 
potent conclusion that it was no go, but that a path could be cut 
to Hayti, and recommended his boon companions to take that 
as better than nothing. Mr. Soule followed amid a great clatter 
of tin pans and sounding of rams' horns on his expedition fili- 
buster-wise. He travelled on for some time, and at the end his 
followers, hearers, and readers concluded that his road led no- 



170 FILIBVSTERISM ON THE EBB. [Feb. 

where. He got no farther ahead, so far as any thing practical 
was to be attained, than a horse in a bark mill. And lastly 
comes the Douglas, the favorite and champion and candidate of 
Young America, to hold his flambeaux to the path they should 
follow. The moment he stops talking all is darkness again. 
The Filibusters have crowded to the shores at the sound of the 
bugles of their leaders and impatiently await embarkation or 
direction. But the atmosphere is misty, the ways are muddy, 
the ships are not forthcoming, the leaders are in a state of obfus- 
cation, and nothing promises to be done. The .play don't com- 
mence — the entertainment don't begin, and the audience are 
getting impatient. 

We suggest that Filibusterism is on the ebb, and that unless 
somebody does something pretty soon, Young America will be- 
gin to disband and disperse. We don't want them to take it 
hard of us to say so, but really we think that their prospects are 
growing poor under their present leaders. Suppose they should 
try a change. There is Sken Smith, and Rynders, and Mike 
Walsh, and others to be had. The old ones are getting quite too 
old fogyish. Turn 'em out and try some new ones. We don't 
want to see this party go to pieces ; it has a mission to fulfil in 
which we have an interest. We have among us some chaps 
who have a great penchant for a storm in the Caribbean Sea, 
and who would be improved by it, especially if it resulted in 
their getting overboard. 

There is a lack in Mr. Douglas's speech which strikes us 
with great force, considering the prominence given to the sub- 
ject by his lieutenant in the House. We allude to his omis- 
sion to say a word of Hayti. 

Mr. Marshall, seeing the need of doing something for the 
Filibusters, after finding the Cuban scheme exploded, gave a 
delicious picture of Hispaniola, and turned their eyes thither. 
But his suggestions have fallen still-born. The senator is silent 
as the grave thereon. No echo has been awakened in that 
quarter to inspire the hopes of the little band of patriots who 
sail under the flag of Young America. There is no longer a 
Cuba, or even a substitute for Cuba, held out to them. Hayti 
would do better than nothing, but even that it would seem is 
not hereafter to be considered legitimate plunder. The hopes 



1853] SENATOR WESTCOTT ON TURTLES. 171 

of the Filibusters have turned to dust and ashes. We do not 
wonder that their organ is advertised for sale — stock and fluke. 
But who will buy the Democratic Review after all this collaps- 
ing of ths Young American leaders, and especially after its 
awful faux pas of publishing the likeness of the ablest Demo- 
cratic editor, the sight of which, according to Prentice, has oc- 
casioned innumerable deaths from convulsions. Nobody. It is 
a gone case — leaders, party, organ, and all. Who'll write an 
epitaph on Young America and the Filibusters ? 



TUETLEDOM AND WESTCOTT. 
[From the New York Tribune of March 9.] 

The poet speaks of a charming place 

"Where the purple mullet and the goldfish rove." 

The prosaic name of that particular spot is the coast of Flor- 
ida, otherwise Turtledom. Florida, everybody knows, is an im- 
mense State. It contains any quantity of bullfrogs, rattlesnakes, 
alligators, water-rats, and land-rats to the acre. No part of Tur- 
tledom, we believe, is visible to the naked eye. What isn't 
under water is under the sand. The inhabitants are mostly am- 
phibious or of the Caspar Hauser sort. A considerable portion 
of the latter have never been caught. They inhabit the ever- 
glades and are called Seminoles. Uncle Sam tried to catch them 
several years ago, and spent some thirty millions and nearly 
ruined the reputation of several military men of distinction in 
the attempt — the latter being a loss of no small account, military 
men being the material out of which we have of late got into 
the habit of making Presidents and Cabinet Ministers in very 
large proportions. The free white inhabitants of Florida are to 
be found, after diligent search on its surface, at the rate of 
about one to a square mile — hardly more than some of our 
Northern States can boast of school-houses or churches. But 
among these free white inhabitants, as among their bullfrogs, 
are some of the noisiest sort. And the noisiest among the 
noisy is ex-Senator ex-Governor Westcott. This gentleman 
has run an eventful career, and we hardly know of any thing he 
is not, or has not been, or of any thing that he has not done, or 



172 TURTLES IN THE TARIFF. [March 

had a hand in, especially in the way of mischief -making. If 
there is anything particularly pert or pungent going through the 
newspapers in the way of political diablerie, it may be pretty 
safely assumed that Mr. Westcott is at the bottom of it. And 
for many such things we imagine few would dispute his right to 
take out a patent as original inventor. He is a sort of political 
Guy Fawkes, with this distinction, that his powder canisters often 
get touched off. Of Florida he may say, in the main, from the 
establishment of her Constitution down to the present time," All 
of which I saw, and most of which I was." Westcott is in fact 
the turtle's head of Florida, and a snapping turtle at that. The 
arms of Florida should be a turtle couchant, and a Westcott ram- 
pant. Florida without Wescott would be no Florida. So far as 
we have seen any sign of brains in that quarter Westcott has fur- 
nished them. When Westcott was governor he wrote his own 
messages, and when Duvall was governor, Westcott wrote Du- 
vall's messages, and when he became senator everybody knows 
that the filibustering propensities of his ever-boiling noddle were 
the constant source of senatorial convulsions and splurges, until 
no man in the body was so conspicuous as this eccentric and pug- 
nacious senator with the queue; and no State of half so much 
prominence as the State of Florida. "No man was so zealous 
about slavery, none so vigilant in watching or so keen in scenting 
dangers to the peculiar institution. But above all, he was es- 
pecially conspicuous in looking after the interests of Florida. 
One little fact shows this in a ludicrous light. When the tariff 
of 1846 was under discussion, Westcott Mowed up about it, and 
refused to support it unless a certain article was protected ; and, 
reader, what think you it was ? Why, nothing less than turtles. 
And, accordingly, turtles went into the tariff, and they are the 
subjects of protection to this day. 

Our late fishing difficulties have developed fishery literature 
in abundance. We have had Mr. Sabine most elaborately on the 
subject, and, as we thought, most effectually. We could not see 
that he had left a fin or a scale of it untouched, or a spawn of it 
to be hatched into life by anybody else. More lately, Mr. Consul 
Andrews, of the Fishing District, has expounded in that manual 
of political and statistical ubiquity of his, just issued, all the in- 
shore and deep-sea branches of this prolific tapic, and wound in 



1853] WE8TC0TTS FERTILE GENIUS. 173 

and out of it in so many weir-like ways, that we did not imagine 
that even the pollywog interest would have reason to complain 
that its history and claims had not been fully recognized and pre- 
sented to an admiring country. But " Ex. Document, No. 45," 
' ' Senate, ' ' has convinced us that we have labored under deep 
delusion. So far as we have observed, neither Sabine nor An- 
drews, nor any other of the learned commentators have said a 
word upon the momentous branch of the subject brought to 
light by " Senate Document, No. 45," the most of which is the 
product of the prolific brain of the aforesaid Senator Westcott, 
alias Governor Westcott, alias Captain Westcott, of the Florida 
Volunteers, and Seminole extirpator, and negro slavery defender, 
and cotton-interest elucidator in general. The field here ex- 
plored and brought before us with Daguerrean accuracy and 
crayon-drawing distinctness is a part of the sphere which we 
denominate " Turtledom." Mr. Westcott has hitherto appeared 
in all sorts of characters upon the political stage, and always 
with eclat, but his versatile genius has here found expression in 
something entirely novel. He now appears in "Turtle." Not 
to bewilder the reader, we will briefly say that turtles are caught 
on the Florida coast, and that a turtle is considered in Florida 
a fish. And with that detonating, powder-like sensibility with 
which our Southern brethren in general, and Senator Westcott 
in particular, manifest to every thing that touches any of their 
interests, the moment the " fishery question" was broached in 
Congress all Turtledom was in a blaze. And on the 14th of 
Februar} r last the Senate passed a resolution calling on the Pres- 
ident for an authentic expose of the ways and the woes of Tur- 
tledom. And this resolution brought forth " Senate Document, 
No. 45," to which we have referred. This document con- 
sists, first, of a correspondence between Mr. Livingston, Secre- 
tary of State, and Mr. Bankhead, the British minister at Washing- 
ton, disclosing the important fact that the Bahama Island people 
desired to vary their pursuits of salt-making and wrecking by 
being allowed now and then to spear a turtle on the neighboring 
coast of Florida. But the body of the document, which con- 
sists of twenty pages, is mainly occupied by a long letter signed 
by Governor Duvall, but bearing unmistakable internal marks of 
being the production of ex-Senator Westcott, and by three letters 



174 SLAVERY AND TURTLES. [March 

written and signed by the aforesaid James D. Westcott, Jr., 
when a senator in Congress. These letters all drive at the one 
point, of showing the vast importance of turtles, and of the 
necessity of preventing everybody but Floridians from catching 
them ; and the letters would be entirely complete if they had 
only contained a receipt for the most approved method of cook- 
ing the article on which they so eloquently dwell. In any sec- 
ond edition of the work known as " Senate Document, No. 45," 
we would suggest the addition of a few first-rate receipts for 
cooking turtles. The subject would then be exhausted and 
nothing would be left to be added by future explorers in Turtle- 
dom. We now have Isaak Walton's "Complete Angler." 
We should then have Westcott's " Complete Turtler." 

But what has chiefly drawn our attention to " Senate Docu- 
ment, No. 45," is the trenchant temper the ex-Senator displays 
upon the subject which lies nearest his heart, namely, the patri- 
archal institution. It takes an ingenious man to imagine what 
connection there can possibly be between slavery and turtles. 
But Mr. Westcott makes it out as clear as mud, and we cannot 
possibly do less than refer those who desire to investigate that 
touching relationship, to the document in question. It makes 
plain enough to our apprehension that the Union has been in as 
great danger from the turtle question as it has ever been from 
any one of the frightful topics that have blanched the cheek of 
the nation any time during the last five years. Our impression 
is, that if turtles had not been protected by the tariff of 1846, 
and if Senator Westcott's filibustering letters in " Senate Docu- 
ment, No. 45," on turtles and slavery, had been disregarded by 
Mr. Polk's administration, we should have had the people of 
Florida in open rebellion, and the troops of Turtledom, headed 
by the belligerent senator himself, thundering at the gates of 
the Capitol demanding justice for turtles and slavery. Where 
then would have been the Union ? We tremble while we pro- 
pound the question ! 



[From lion. Truman Smith.] 

" If the Whig party and name were once fairly dead and buried, we believe 
every distinctive principle whereon it acts would be affirmed, every end it 
contemplates secured, within a very few years. The fierce hostility we encoun- 



1853] LETTER FROM TRUMAN SMITH. 1?5 

ter is impelled, not by what we really aim to do, but by what we are mistakenly 
-supposed to be. The National Railroad to the Pacific (and, in fact, internal 
improvement generally), the protection of our infant and precariously strug- 
gling branches of manufacturing industry, our canal enlargement, etc., etc., can 
only be effectively opposed by drawing as against them old party lines and arous- 
ing inveterate predjudices. May the time soon come when even this device will 
be resorted to in vain !" 

Washington City, March 27, 1853. 

Dear Sir : The foregoing paragraph, from an interesting and able 
article in your paper of yesterday's date, hits the nail on the head. It 
accords exactly with the conclusions at which I have arrived. I am 
confident we can do nothing with the Whig organization in the way of 
assisting and maintaining the cherished measures and principles of the 
party — measures and principles which would be unhesitatingly embraced 
by two thirds, and probably by three fourths, of the American people, were 
it not for the prejudices of party names and the passions of party organi- 
zations. We may, as heretofore, occasionally carry the presidential elec- 
tion, to be followed by a remorseless scramble for the spoils, and ulti- 
mately by defection and treachery such as we witnessed during the late 
presidential canvass. In addition to this, the painful fact stands revealed 
that we have many in our midst who have no more honesty than they 
should have. Dining the late Administration our people, or rather many 
of them, seem to have gone in for stealing on a large scale. I consider 
the party disgraced by Galphinisms and Gardnerisms and other isms which 
will ere long be brought to light. If there are not astounding develop- 
ments in the next few months I shall be agreeably disappointed. We 
cannot elect a man who would be worth one straw when elected, and he 
could not avoid bringing into power the rogues, or at least many of them. 
Besides all that, we should have over again the same exhibitions of nepo- 
tism and favoritism which were the besetting sins of the Taylor and Fill- 
more administrations. Such are my anticipations in respect to the 
future ; and yet I am too old a man to be whiffling about. I shall not, 
therefore, desert my party ; bat I am prepared to unite with the disin- 
terested and patriotic portions of them in an effort to do something for 
the country, provided a door is open which shall afford a reasonable 
chance for success. I think such a door will be opened in course of 
four years, if we manage discreetly and properly. The candidate, who- 
ever he may be, must be brought forward under Democratic auspices 
and be supported in the name of Democracy, otherwise it will be noth- 
ing but Whiggery over again. During the next two years I can do 
much to encourage the presentation of a candidate of the right sort, one 
who will be for a reasonable and proper modification of the tariff of '46, 



176 SOULE, MINISTER TO SPAIN. [April 

and for harbor and river improvement ; who will also be against more 
territory and against war. Why will not this be better for you and me 
than to go for any old fogy of the Whig party ? For my part, I have 
got tired of officiating as a sort of hoop to the Democratic barrel ! 
keeping the heading and staves in place by an outside pressure. What 
say you to this, Mr. Historiographer ! Biographer ! of the celebrated 
Scott canvass of 1852 ? 

Truman Smith, Chairman of the Executive Committee. 
Hon. James S. Pike. 



MINISTER TO SPAIN. 

[From the New York Tribune of April 8.] 

We are a little surprised at the intelligence brought to us 
last night by telegraph that Mr. Soule has been appointed Min- 
ister to the court of Madrid, notwithstanding our Washington 
correspondents some days since predicted the appointment. It 
has been supposed that Louisiana would not be allowed two first- 
grade missions, and when Mr. Slidell was appointed to Central 
America, it was reckoned to settle Mr. Senile's prospects in the 
diplomatic line. Another reason for the supposition that Mr. 
Soule would not receive this mission particularly, is, that it was 
applied for by a distinguished legal gentleman of Louisiana, who 
came to Washington, at Mr. Soule's suggestion, and with a 
promise from him, Mr. S., that he would render the aforesaid 
gentleman all the needed aid to obtain any position he desired. 
When it transpired, some days ago, that Mr. Soule was himself 
a candidate for the mission, he was ajDplied to promptly by the 
gentleman in question to know if it were so, and if he had been 
brought to Washington on a wild-goose chase. To this Mr. 
Soule replied that he would not accept the Spanish mission, ex- 
cept upon one condition, and that condition he did not suppose 
the Administration would grant. Upon being questioned as to 
what it was, he replied that it was that he should have unlimited 
powers for the purchase of Cuba. 

We infer therefore that Mr. Soule is invested with unrestricted 
authority to bargain for that island. This is the object for 
which he goes. He has walked straight over the head of a 
friend to get the place for this purpose and no other. We may 



1853] SANTA ANNA DICTATOR. 177 

be sure he will exert all his skill, all his adroitness, and all his 
ability to accomplish this object. He is possessed of a boundless 
ambition, and we don't know any thing he would not do to sig- 
nalize his diplomatic career and give eclat to his name to the ex- 
tent that would be done by the annexation of Cuba through his 
efforts. We are prepared, therefore, for any kind of a project 
and any sort of a demonstration which looks towards this result. 
We expect to hear in the end of cajoleries, bamboozlements, 
threatenings, and every description of expedient played off upon 
Spain without stint or measure by the ardent, ambitious, and un- 
scrupulous Frenchman now sent to represent us at the Spanish 
court. The Cuban filibusters will have a zealous ally in Mr. 
Soule, who will second any of their motions that promise suc- 
cess. And we have no doubt that, if every other expedient fails 
to acquire Cuba, that our new Minister will not hesitate to do hi& 
best to get up a war between us and Spain, in the hope and ex- 
pectation that that will accomplish the object. Spain is, there- 
fore, the point in our European relations that we shall scrutinize 
with the closest gaze and the greatest interest during Mr. Soule's 
stay at Madrid. We expect nothing but that he will involve the 
country in some difficulty before he gets through with the job he 
has on hand. 



SANTA ANNA AND MEXICO. 
[From the New York Tribune of May 16.] 

The hero just south of us with the wooden leg has recom- 
menced his career. He has opened business on his own account, 
without partners. He coolly talks of the nation " whose desti- 
nies are in his hands' ' just as if he had obtained a warrantee deed 
of the whole concern — land, population, and all. He has as- 
sumed without hesitation, and proposes to exercise without re- 
serve, the powers of a dictator. We published yesterday in our 
Havana letter the names of Iris new diplomatic staff, and a few 
days since we gave those of his cabinet, and shall have soon, 
doubtless, the names of his instruments whom he dignifies with 
the title of Councillors. By his preliminary edict we learn that 
a legislative body would only be in the way in his scheme of 
government, and therefore it is, in mild phrase, ' ' to enter into 



178 PROPOSED LEAGUE OF SPAIN AND MEXICO. [May 

recess." This is a modest mode of sending those troublesome 
gentlemen called legislators home. Doubtless Mr. Santa Anna 
thinks they can be better employed there than in debating his 
official acts. As for the interests of the people at large, Mr. 
Santa Anna undoubtedly considers himself qualified to take care 
of them without the intervention or aid of loquacious represen- 
tatives. He evidently looks to the idea of making his govern- 
ment a simple machine. Having thus concluded to take affairs 
wholly into his own hands, he already begins to cast about him for 
allies and supporters from without. Finding her most Catholic 
Majesty of Spain a little hard pushed on this side of the Atlantic 
on account of the filibustering propensities of Brother Jonathan, 
our sombre hero of the wooden leg, who is a good deal down in 
the mouth lest he shouldn't make things go as he desires, is mak- 
ing overtures to her to hitch teams, and so strengthen one an- 
other against the great marauder of the North. This is very like a 
couple of gobblers forming an alliance to resist a locomotive. 
What does Mr. Santa Anna expect to accomplish by such a 
scheme as this ? He has the reputation of embodying the brains 
of his nation, but if this is a sample of Mexican wisdom what 
upon earth must be its folly ? Spain, from being a nation of 
extended dominion, vigorous sway, and trenchant temper, has 
had all her outposts driven in, except those which the forebear- 
ance of other powers permits her to hold, has grown gray and 
gaunt and feeble, and totters in decay and decrepitude upon 
the very brink of national ruin. Strip her of her American col- 
onies, and her existing machinery of government would collapse 
under the burden of a hopeless bankruptcy. There is no power 
in all Mexico, and there is none in the Spanish government, be- 
tween which to form a league that would not provoke ridicule 
for its imbecility ; and such would be the readiest means to bring 
about the very result the league would be established to guard 
against. 

But what can Santa Anna do ? This is a difficult question to 
answer. It is easier to see and to say what he cannot do. We 
doubt if the whole fabric of Mexican nationality and character be 
not so hollow and rotten that nothing substantial can rest upon 
it. It seems to us that Mexico is in a state of hopeless decay. 
Her population is of the meanest conglomerate. It is mentally, 



1853] EFFEMINACY OF THE MEXICANS. 179 

morally, and physically diseased to an extent that appears to for- 
bid all reasonable hope that it can ever be raised to the level of a 
self -sustaining civilization. It seems to be the doom of all our 
mixed races to disappear. The Indian race melts away before 
the white man even without amalgamation. The Mexican has 
far less of a solid, enduring base of character, less genuine man- 
hood to oppose to the perpetual attrition of the great Northern 
American race than the pure savage. He is effeminate and fee- 
ble in his physical characteristics, and destitute of every en- 
nobling quality, of every manly virtue. Still, would Santa Anna 
do all that his position admits of, it might yet turn out that be- 
neath the apparently totally demoralized state of the nation 
there is a core, a germ of manhood left, upon which to found 
anew the superstructure of firm government. But every thing 
being done it would be a chance then at best. If the power of the 
priesthood could be subverted in Mexico, and the people emanci- 
pated from their spiritual bondage ; if the wealth that has been 
torn from the poor and wrung from the victims of the internal 
convulsions of that unhappy country, which has found its way 
into the coffers of the ecclesiastics, could be wrested from their 
possession and applied to the discharge of the national debt ; if a 
solid system of finance and an economical government could be 
established ; if a diversified industry were heartily encouraged, 
and if the country were thrown open to enterprise having assur- 
ance of protection, a vast improvement might take place, and 
Mexico rise by degrees to the dignity of a really independent, 
self -sustained nationality. But who can hope that these neces- 
sary conditions to her release from her present abasement and 
degradation can all be complied with ? From Santa Anna we can 
expect no such thing. His scheme evidently is to draw even 
tighter the cords of spiritual bondage, and to forge new fetters 
for the political enslavement of the miserable masses he essays to 
govern. We observe that he has appointed the Very Rev. Bishop 
of Michoacan the President of his new Council of Twenty-one, 
which he has established in lieu of the two defunct branches of 
Congress. And our latest intelligence — which we publish this 
morning — is, that he has been receiving petitions for the aboli- 
tion of the federal system, which is simply a convenient mode of 
intimating that it is his purpose to destroy this system. Choked 



180 LIEUT. MAURY ON AMAZONIA. [May 

anew by the tyranny of botli spiritual and temporal power what 
is left for Mexico ? In her next throes for relief it is clear that 
a large party will be found within her borders advocating annex- 
ation to the United States. Arista plainly intimates that he is 
for it. But to the decaying corpse of Mexican corruption and 
imbecility we do not imagine this youthful republic stands 
ready to be bound. The national appetite for territory we know 
is voracious, but that it will ever lead us into the unspeakable 
folly of swallowing the populous districts of Mexico we shall 
never believe till we see the act consummated — a sight we never 
expect to witness. 



AMAZONIA. 
[From the New York Tribune of May 26.] 

Lieutenant Maury, of the National Observatory, is for a sci- 
entific person a most imaginative gentleman. We saw in the 
National Intelligencer of Saturday last a long communication 
from him addressed to Mr. J. B. Pryor, who had asked Ins views 
on " the objects of the Memphis Convention," with the purpose 
of laying them before that body at its meeting in June. Mr. 
Maury lays himself out at full length on what he calls " Ama- 
zonia. ' ' He seems to understand that the gentlemen who held 
the Commercial Convention at Baltimore last winter, and ad- 
journed thence to meet at Memphis next month, not only aim at 
diverting existing trade to Southern ports, but are aiming at the 
discovery of new fields wherein to plough out the ingots and pearls 
of fresh commercial glories. This idea inspires Mr. Maury, and 
he describes the prodigality with which Nature has poured treas- 
ures into " Amazonia" in the most glowing manner. His en- 
thusiasm over " Amazonia" is well-nigh boundless. He ex- 
presses his utter astonishment that such a country could have 
been so long ignored by all creation. He says : 

" That the men of the age, the statesmen of Europe and America, the 
spirit of colonial enterprise and adventure which marks the times should 
all have ignored such a country, such a soil, and such climates, with such 
capacities, capabilities, and resources as are there, is, and will hereafter be 
regarded as the greatest of wonders." 



1853] MAURY'S ELOQUENCE. 181 

Mr. Maury expatiates largely upon the travels of a " Young 
Sailor Richards," who it seems has been down to those diggins, 
and who there saw a great many astonishing sights, and among 
them a river that sometimes runs up stream and sometimes down 
(unlike the Tombigbee), and, according to Mr. Richards and Mr. 
Maury, has both its head and its tail in the Lake Titicaca. 
Besides this, young Richards saw animals on the one hand 
" tame," and on the other " wild." So says Mr. Maury. He 
looked upon the Andes and saw snow above, while he found it 
melting hot below ; there too he found trees of ' ' bread ' ' and 
" milk," and nuts that could be used either as a dessert or a gas- 
pipe. Mr. Richards avowed to the Lieutenant that he was quite 
taken aback at the prodigality of Nature in " Amazonia," and 
wondered the country had never been occupied. See how Mr. 
Maury glows over the " Young Sailor Richards :" 

" He had seen the sun at high noon standing in the north, and casting 
shadows to the south. He had been in those stormy and distant latitudes 
where daylight was but the longest meteor of a long night. He had seen a 
river that turns about at times and runs up stream. He had taken in at one 
view the vegetation of the three zones ; and I, therefore, wondering which 
of all these things appeared to him the most curious, said to him — ' Pray, 
Mr. Eichards, what, during this interesting trip of yours in the valley of 
the Amazon, struck you with the most force, as being the most curious 
thing or remarkable circumstance met with in all your travels ? ' 

" ' The most remarkable thing, sir ? "Why, that such a country as that 
of the Amazon should, in the middle of the nineteenth century, be a wilder- 
ness. ' 

" What a commentary ! I thank that noble young tar with all my 
heart for this most glorious description of a glorious country. Language 
of greater force and compass, or of more eloquence, is not to be found 
anywhere." 

Mr. Maury then proceeds to say that this is the country to 
which he invites the Convention. 

Now we like the suggestion. Let the Memphis people who 
propose a universal revolution in trade and commerce try their 
hand on ' ' Amazonia. ' ' Here is a first-rate chance for them to 
make a beginning and secure a trade that now goes begging. 
If half of Mr. Maury's swans should turn out to be real swans, 
and not geese, the Memphis men would find good picking for the 
rest of their lives in exploiting the streams he describes, with 



182 THE REVOLUTIONISTS OF MEMPHIS. [May 

the soft enthusiasm of a visionary, as coming from the " Chick- 
asaw Bluffs," "Pittsburg," and elsewhere up and down the 
Mississippi and Ohio on the one hand, and from " Tabatinga," 
"Nauta," and other out-of-the-way places on the other. We 
recommend the "Chickasaw," " JNauta," and "Tabatinga" 
trade to the Memphis Convention. " Amazonia" is an im- 
mense country beyond all manner of doubt, and they grow all 
manner of products on the sides of the Andes, from the tropical 
fruits at the base to the lichen and moss of Lapland at their tops. 
And we don't see how the Memphis Convention could do better 
than to go into the lichen and moss, and pineapple and banana 
trade. There is certainly a vast opening for it, for the mouth 
of the Amazon is not less than a hundred miles wide, and, we 
might add, is hot in proportion. Let the revolutionists of Mem- 
phis off jackets and go ahead into ' ' Amazonia. ' ' And don't let 
them consider that this is any picayune business either. We 
have Mr. Maury's authority for saying that " Amazonia" is 
" alone capable of sustaining the entire present population of the 
world." The idea may well make our Memphis friends prick up 
their ears. 

Seriously, we are impatient at this gabble-and-strut manner 
of treating such topics. It is but the spread of the peacock's 
tail. Mr. Maury is an enthusiastic gentleman who has done 
some service by his wind and current charts. But really it 
seems to us that he is giving vent on paper to too much of the 
breezy commodity. What this country wants is not incitements 
to trade up and down the Amazon, but to develop and improve 
and perfect our own internal resources. With a virgin soil 
within our own limits capable of producing, and which does now 
produce all that " Amazonia" can offer, what need have we to 
seek, through the pestilential jungles and torrid heats of the 
Amazon the wealth we have, or can have, at home ? Mr. Maury 
need not wonder that that country is yet a waste, even if " Sailor 
Boy Kichards " does. The great river on which he dilates with 
such fervent fancy pours its waters into the ocean on the Equa- 
tor, and it runs, for almost twenty-five hundred miles of its 
course, without getting five degrees away from that line. A 
vertical sun forever blazes down upon its bosom, making its 
atmosphere like that of a furnace seven times heated. Miasma 



1853] LETTER FROM GEORGE RIP LET. 183 

is generated over the oceans of rank vegetation, or the steam- 
ing marshes that border it, and spreads disease and death whither- 
soever its exhalations are floated by the wind. The air is every- 
where laden with noxious vapors fatal to life. Man gasps for 
breath amid exhausting heats, and inhales it but to expire from 
its poisons. Is it any wonder that such a country should not be 
the first, or among the first, to which American enterprise has 
turned its attention ? 



[From George Ripley.] 

Tribune Office, July 3, 1853. 

My Dear Pike : I am really ashamed that I have not been able to 
get my head far enough above water to examine your maiden novel until 
this very day, when the impending Fourth gives business a lull. 

I cannot flatter you with any blood-red hopes of success as a ficti- 
tious writer — out of the sphere of politics and theology, where, indeed, 
you show invention and imagination perfectly Shakespearean. 

This manuscript production, which you have so shamefully endeav- 
ored to palm off on me as the work of a lady, will not do. I am cer- 
tain that none of our great publishing houses would look at it for a 
second time. Its chief merit is its fluency and smoothness — the narra- 
tive runs like oil ; but it has no strong salient points — no fire — no wick- 
edness — no wrath to come. I therefore advise you to withdraw your 
pretensions as a rival of ... . and stick to your cantankerous snarls and 
growls at our great and shining lights in Church and State. 

To spare you the mortification of this failure, I authorize you to 
assure your condoling friends that the New York market just now is 
very flat for the lighter literature, which will stand no chance until 
colder weather — and probably not then. 

I will carefully preserve your remains, as I cherish the memory of 
your numerous virtues, and more numerous sins, and am, as ever, 

Yours truly, Geo. Ripley. 

James S. Pike, Esq., Careless, Mayghne. 



ATCHISON AND SLAVERY. 
[From the New York Tribune of November, 1853.] 

A late stump speech of Senator Atchison in Missouri, which 
we find reported in the Glasgow Ti?nes, affords fresh evidence of 



184 SENATOR ATCHISON ON NEBRASKA. [Nov. 

the activity of the slavery men in opposition to the organization 
of Nebraska, while it offers a remarkable example of vacillating 
judgment and swerving purposes on the part of that very shal- 
low gentleman. Mr. Atchison made a speech on the last day of 
the last session of Congress, on the subject of the organization of 
a territorial government for Nebraska. "We laid a portion of 
that speech before our readers the other day, containing an ad- 
mission that its author went to Washington a year ago opposed 
to Nebraska, for the reason that slaves were excluded from the 
Territory by the Missouri Compromise. It also contained an 
avowal that he had changed his ground during the session, and 
had determined to vote for the organization of the Territory, see- 
ing that he could not discover any way to get around the pro- 
visions of the Compromise, and he had no hope of their repeal. 
On that occasion Mr. Atchison had to try twice before he could 
make up his mind fully to avow his real reasons why he was 
against Nebraska at first, and why he had concluded to vote for 
the organization of the Territory at last. But he finally got the 
reason out, and this admission disclosed the secret of the hostility 
manifested in the Senate on that question. By the speech be- 
fore us it appears that Mr. Atchison has turned another somerset 
and gone back to his original position. He now distinctly 
opposes the territorial organization of Nebraska, and avows that 
he shall go against it, notwithstanding his last speech in Congress 
was made in its favor. 

The subject of slavery in all its aspects is a constant source 
of misery to its friends. It is a ghost that forever haunts their 
sleeping and their waking dreams. It is a phantom that con- 
stantly preoccupies their thoughts and their imagination. It is 
the skeleton in the house ; only that they will never be quiet 
upon it, but incessantly dwell upon its horrors. The slave- 
holder, or the supporter of slavery in this our day, is emphati- 
cally, over and above every other man, the creature of but one 
idea. Slavery is his meat and his drink. It is the atmosphere in 
which he breathes. It is his companion by night and by day. 
It is the fountain of all his own thoughts, and it is the weight 
and measure by which he estimates the thoughts of every other 
man. Nothing comes to him on its own merits and unencum- 
bered, either from the realms of mind or matter. Every truth 



1853] THE SLAVERY OF SLAVERY. 185 

of religion, every dictate of charity, every sentiment of philan- 
thropy, every glowing hope and every generous feeling, every 
fact of science and every deduction of logic, before being 
accepted or countenanced by him, has to be examined in its influ- 
ence upon slavery. And accordingly as its bearing is for or 
against, so is decided the question of its reception into the mind. 
And especially so is decided the question whether it shall be 
allowed to direct or influence the conduct of the individual. 
The support and defence of chattel slavery necessitates abject 
mental servitude, and creates a slavery of the soul, which, to 
every independent mind, is more galling than the worst fetters 
of physical bondage. We daily feel a melancholy sorrow at the 
■straits into which we see the supporters, apologists, and defend- 
ers of slavery driven. The natural instincts of justice and right 
often prompt them to do some good act. They no sooner begin 
than they are arrested in it by the fell genius that dogs their 
footsteps and whose suggestion is their law. The beauty of 
truth often seduces them into a ready assent, which is scarce half 
pronounced ere the expression is checked, qualified, or withheld 
entirely. For such mental bondage, such slavery to slavery, 
such perversion Of the powers which elevate man in the scale of 
being, such stultification of the intellect, and such self-inflicted 
incarceration of the soul, who can help feeling pity and com- 
miseration ? 

Thus we even pity Mr. Atchison, though we confess that we 
do not think that either his moral or mental organization is of 
■such a texture that it will sufter much from the consciousness of 
his dodging tergiversations. But it is pitiable to see any man 
who has been elevated to the position of United States Senator, 
thus running from one side to another of a question, beating 
about and dodging from hedge to hedge like a stoned squirrel, 
on a measure of legislation which he should approach like a man, 
consider like a man, and decide like a man. That he does not 
do it in this case, but falters and hesitates, deciding first one 
way and then another, fooling away what little capital of 
respectable mediocrity he had to begin with, is because he is one 
of the poor sticks under that degrading subjection to slavery of 
w T hich we have spoken. He is consistent in nothing but in his 
fealty to the peculiar institution. To this degenerate and inglo- 



186 WALKER EXTEMPORIZES A NATION. [Nov. 

rious condition how many of the public men of our day are 
meanly aiming, believing it to be the only goal of political suc- 
cess and distinction. 



A NEW REPUBLIC. 
[From the New Turk Tribune of November, 1853.] 

We herald this morning, as we heralded in yesterday's even- 
ing edition, the striking fact that a new republic had sprang 
into existence on this continent, with all its paraphernalia of 
President, cabinet officers, military and naval bureaus, com- 
manders by sea and land, et cetera, et cetera. 

Pause, reader, for an instant to gaze upon this improvisation 
of a new, and (if it should live long enough) immortal nation and 
people. It has sprung into being in a befitting manner. The 
country it has chosen is a volcanic tongue on the Pacific, at some 
remote period interjected above the sea by a great and sudden 
convulsion of nature. The republic now established thereon 
has not less suddenly sprung into existence. Yesterday it Mas 
not ; to-day it is. Behold its government and its people ! 
Mark their meteoric and triumphant career ! Observe their first 
incursion, note their feats of arms, their victories, the overthrow 
of the old and the installation of the new dynasty ! See how 
promptly and easily the new power swings upon its hinges ! 

Our readers will understand we are speaking of the new Re- 
public of Lower California. We usher it before the world with 
a flush of patriotic pride and admiration that we essay in vain to 
express. What other land can exhibit the spectacle or the his- 
toric record of having extemporized a new nation in an hour and 
a half by the clock, with precisely forty-five men, all told ? It 
is a clear case that we are never to have any difficulties on this, 
continent about the " balance of power," such as are now con- 
vulsing all Europe. If we should ever need new powers and 
new nations, wherewith to adjust or maintain the political equi- 
librium, it is plain to be seen that we have the ability to jerk 
them into existence by the nape of the neck as fast as any kind 
of revolution or spirit of aggression could possibly require. This 
is manifest from the case before us. Forty -five valorous citizens 
with carbines in hand, and we dare say canteens of whiskey to 



1853] GOVERNMENT OF THE FILIBUSTERS. 187 

match, have precipitated themselves from the skies, as it were, 
and have created a new power in the world. That this is done 
is clear, from the fact that (unlike the China rebels, whose efforts 
may fail for want of a recognized chief) a new government, 
unanimously chosen from and by the people now holding that 
extensive country, already sways its protecting aegis over the 
California Peninsula. 

We have the authentic and authoritative announcement that 
its officers are appointed as follows : 

"William Walker, President of Republic of Lower California. Frederick 
Emory, Secretary of State. John M. Jarnagin, Secretary of War. How- 
ard A. Snow, Secretary of Navy. 

Military. — John Chapman, Major of Battalion. Charles H. Gilman, 
Captain of Battalion. John McKibber, First Lieutenant. Timothy 
Crocker, Second Lieutenant. Samuel Ruland, Third Lieutenant. 

Naval. — William T. Mann, Captain of Navy. A. Williams, First Lieu- 
tenant. John Grandell, Second Lieutenant. 

What an astounding revelation of the infinite possibilities of 
Yankeedom is here manifested ! A new republic has been 
spoken into being in just ninety minutes, and it now stands be- 
fore the universe with all its arrangements complete, consisting 
of precisely one President, three cabinet officers, five military 
and three naval commanders, and thirty-three citizens, " all in 
fine health and spirits. ' ' 

Further than this, we are informed that this government is 
" formed upon a sure and firm basis." The Code Napoleon has 
been adopted for the rule of decision in the courts and as the 
civil law of the land. A capital has been founded and a seat of 
government established. The record we publish shows that the 
infant republic has already won one prodigious victory on the 
land, and come off conquerors in a threatened engagement at sea. 
So invincible is its prowess that not a man had, at the last ac- 
counts, been killed or wounded throughout its whole career. 
The great battle of La Paz and the inchoate naval engagement 
off Cape St. Lucas are regarded as having crowned all these 
efforts with a success that will command the instant recognition 
of all existing powers, including the Emperor Napoleon and 
King Kamehameha. 

The account of the subsequent proceedings of this new nation 



188 REPEAL OF THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE. [Dec. 

will be full of intense interest. We presume that in addition to 
the appointment of the members of the cabinet and the filling 
of the military and naval departments, we shall soon have lists 
of the diplomatic corps (doubtless to be all dressed in Soule 
coats), foreign consuls, judges of the courts, and so forth. If 
we do not, it will be undoubtedly owing to the fact that emi- 
grants come in slowly, and that there are not, consequently, 
people enough to fill those places. 

We shall anxiously await the progress of affairs. The first 
assembling of the Congress of the new republic will be observed 
with breathless attention. Immense solicitude will be particu- 
larly felt, not only in our own but in all the great money circles 
of the world, in regard to the financial statement of President 
Walker's government. The name of Walker is a most fortu- 
nate one for all great money operations, and we hope for the sake 
of republicanism in general, and the new republic in particular, 
that his Excellency William Walker is a blood relation of the ex- 
Ilon. Robert J. The report of the Secretary of the Navy will 
also be looked for with almost equal interest. Doubtless it will 
be voluminous, for Lower California is pre-eminently a maritime 
State, being nearly surrounded by water. It particularly be- 
hooves us to sedulously scrutinize every thing which looks like a 
successful naval rivalry in the waters of the Pacific. 



SLAVERY IN THE FIELD. 
[From the New York Tribune of December, 1853.] 

An overt attempt is set on foot in Mr. Douglas's Nebraska 
bill to override the Missouri Compromise. The eighth section 
of the act admitting Missouri as a State is as follows : 

" In all that territory ceded by France to the United States, under the 
name of Louisiania, which lies north of 36 degrees and 30 minutes north 
latitude, not included within the limits of the State contemplated by this 
act, slavery and involuntary servitude, otherwise than in the punishment of 
crime whereof the parties shall have been duly convicted, shall be, and is 
hereby, forever prohibited : Provided, always, that any person escaping 
into the same, from whom labor or service is lawfully claimed in any State 
or Territory of the United States, such fugitive may be lawfully reclaimed 
and conveyed to the person claiming his or her labor or service as aforesaid." 



1853] THE STRUGGLE OF 1850. 189 

This plain and unequivocal declaration that neither slavery 
nor involuntary servitude shall ever exist in our North-west ter- 
ritories is unceremoniously hustled aside by Mr. Douglas, who 
makes the Compromise measures of 1850 the scapegoat for his 
sin in doing it. He says that : 

" A proper sense of patriotic duty enjoins upon your Committee the 
propriety and necessity of a strict adherence to the principles, and even a 
literal adoption of the enactments of that adjustment in all their territorial 
bills, so far as the same are not locally inapplicable. ' ' 

And hence he proceeds to incorporate the following provision 
respecting Nebraska into his bill at the start : 

" When admitted as a State, the said Territory, or any portion of the 
same, shall be received into the Union with or without slavery, as their 
Constitution may prescribe at the time of their admission." 

It is not to be expected of men who live for the sole purpose 
of enjoying official station that they shall ever be manly, noble, 
or independent. They slavishly cower before every storm that 
threatens their opinions with popular condemnation, and make 
haste to trim their sails to catch the passing breeze of public 
favor. It is everywhere assumed among such that subjection to 
the slaveholding interest is now the only sure path to political 
honors and distinction. In the struggle of 1850, the great 
Northern anti-slavery sentiment was inundated and over- 
whelmed in consequence of the succumbing temper and faith- 
lessness of rotten leaders. With their own hands they destroyed 
the dikes and let the waters flow in and wash away the rich 
fruits of years. The XXXIst Congress inaugurated the era of 
submission to slavery. Since then every thing has gone on swim- 
mingly in this line. Not only was the slavery question compro- 
mised, but the character, reputation, and principles of hundreds 
of our public men were also compromised by the same operation. 
There was a general debauch and demoralization throughout all 
political circles, as was clearly manifested in the triumphant run 
of General Pierce. The demoralization continues. It is not to 
be expected, therefore, that we shall see, for the present, in the 
acts of public men who place success before principle, any thing 
but unmanly submission to the demands of the slave power. If 
General Taylor had lived, and if the Wilmot Proviso doctrine 



190 ANTI-SLAVERY STILL VITAL. [Dec. 

had substantially triumphed, as it would have done through the 
instrumentality of his policy relative to our Mexican acquisitions, 
then we should have seen the reverse of what we now see. In- 
stead of finding Mr. Douglas down on his marrow bones at the 
feet of slavery, we should see the same man standing up firm 
and strong in behalf of the glorious old Ordinance of 1787. 
Freedom's battle was fought and lost in 1850, and the cowards 
and traitors have all run to the winning side. 

But although anti-slavery is weak in political circles, it was 
never stronger with the masses of the people. The great heart 
of the country is sound. Thousands and millions of true men 
all over the North wait but the occasion for a practical demon- 
stration of their power to show how firm is their attachment to 
the principles of freedom, and how deeply they scorn the shallow 
fools who have the impertinence to talk about " crushing out " 
those principles. "We expect to see slavery go on pressing and 
pushing the advantages it derived from the adjustment of 1850 
till a reaction is created that will again convulse the country to 
its centre. Slavery is imperious, encroaching, truculent, bellig- 
erent. Its own conduct will thus ultimately generate an explo- 
sive force that must blow it to atoms. This movement of Doug- 
las to override and virtually repeal the Missouri Compromise is 
one step in this direction. 

We denounce every attempt to remove the salutary restric- 
tion upon the introduction of slavery into the North-west and 
above the line of 36° 30', below which the Missouri Compromise 
confines it, whether insidious and hesitant, or open and flagrant ; 
a breach of solemn compact between the North and the South, 
inevitably opening a door to a fresh and fierce agitation. Let 
the country take notice that this agitation is not commenced on 
the side of freedom. 



A FOOTE DOWN IN THE BOOTS. 

[From the New York Tribune of December, 1853.] 

Foote has written and published his own funeral oration. 
We cannot find room for it without excluding better matter. 
He says that his political death has overtaken him unexpectedly. 



1853] FOOTE DOWN IN THE BOOTS. 191 

He had no doubt lie should have got back to the Senate, and we 
daresay he expected to have lived to a good old age therein. 
This is natural. Most people are overtaken by death before they 
anticipate it. He intimates that if he had been inclined to bar- 
gain and dicker for the place, he might have bought his way 
back, but that he thought the office of senator too elevated and 
dignified for that. We conjecture that he feared his sin would 
find him out. And we infer from his remarks that if the posi- 
tion had been a humble one, he would have had no scruples on 
this score. Foote thanks the people of Mississippi for what they 
have done for him. "We thank them too. But we question 
the taste of Foote's doing it. This being thankful for being 
elected to stay at home by a man who likes to be in office as well 
as Foote, is to be thankful for a very small favor. But Foote is 
a peculiar man. He always was. He must be considered a 
funny man also, for no one excites more mirth. And he never 
provokes more laughter than when he is the most solemn. Who 
can forget his serious naming of the day and the hour for a disso- 
lution of the Union ? The man really thought at one time that 
he had the Union in his individual keeping, and one day de- 
clared he could not keep it together past a coming Saturday 
afternoon at four, if Congress did not come to his aid. Con- 
gress was busy in the committee-rooms and elsewhere and could 
not come, and Foote, by a herculean effort, took it over into the 
next week. At least he thought he did. Alas ! that he could 
save the Union, but could not save himself ! He is run under in 
Mississippi. The repudiators have repudiated him. He is no 
longer any more current than a Mississippi bond. 

We bid an affectionate adieu to the ex-senator until the next 
time he turns up. He will certainly be along soon with some- 
thing supplementary to his funeral oration. He never yet de- 
livered a discourse or a speech that he did not follow with one 
twice as long to explain it. Henry, au revoir ! 



192 MORE AMAZONIAN REPORTS. [Jan. 



1854. 



NEWS FROM THE AMAZON. 
[From the New York Tribune of January 5, 1854.] 

We have had recently some flowery accounts of the region 
watered by the Amazon and its tributaries as affording a new 
theatre for the extension of our commerce. Not long since 
Lieutenant Maury treated us to a glowing description of the 
" Tabatinga trade," and the delightful spectacle of the meeting 
of steamboats on those waters — the one laden with coal from 
Pittsburg and hams from Cincinnati puffing along under the Equa- 
tor with the mercury at 100°; and the other filled with "twenty- 
three varieties of palms, all more or less useful," the oil of turtles' 
eggs, sarsaparilla, cocoanuts, monkeys' hides, and other delicacies 
of the season — boimd for New Orleans, and so up the Mississippi 
to the Lake of the Woods. 

It was a picture that, as drawn by the imaginative and ornate 
Lieutenant, we could not help contemplating with ecstasy. Yet 
we ventured to suggest that we had better be developing our 
own unrivalled resources which still await the inspiring touch of 
industry and enterprise, than be groping our way to the unin- 
habited wilds, the miasmatic jungles and pestilential morasses of 
that equatorial region, through the heart of which one may 
travel for two thousand miles without finding any population but 
semi-cannibal Indians, without witnessing a trace of civilization, 
ancient or modern, or running afoul of any thing more inviting 
than affectionate cougars, tigers that long to embrace you, lep- 
rous savages, stinging insects, vampire bats, snakes, lizards, 
anacondas, and numberless poisonous reptiles. A region where to 



1854] STYLE OF THE LEADING CITIZENS. 193 

live is to endure, iu such company, the sweltering torments of 
torrid heats, to inspire fevers at every breath, to dwell in debili- 
tating languors, and where the liveliest hopes in death are 
dashed by the reflection that the best that can be expected for 
your mortal remains is that they will be sepulchred in the maw 
of some melancholy alligator. 

Our attention is recalled to the Amazon country by a book 
just issued under Congressional auspices, which is the result of 
an exploration made under the direction of the Navy Department, 
by Lieutenants Herndon and Gibbon, in 1851 and 1852. We 
have looked into this book to see what new thing could be said 
of Amazonia. Our attention was first arrested by some plates 
introducing us to the inhabitants of that country, with whom we 
are to open an extensive and lucrative commerce. Their style of 
dress struck us as being such that, whatever may be their other 
wants, they will make no extraordinary demands upon our cot- 
ton and w T oollen mills for fabrics to be used as clothing. "We 
have in these pictures four specimens of genuine Amazonians. 
The first is a gentleman of tawny complexion, of good propor- 
tions, bare as he came into the world, excepting that he has a 
vegetable belt of the size of a corn-stalk around his waist, to 
which are appended some palm leaves, hanging so loosely that no 
sculptor could object to him as a subject on the score of dress. 
The next is a woman with a rag about her middle, nursing a 
monkey baby, which we conjecture must be some orphan that 
she has been prompted to preserve through the activity of her 
philanthropic and moral sentiments ; or it may be she is taking 
it home to bake, as roast monkey is particularly esteemed by the 
epicures of that country. A third is an individual dressed in 
palm leaves like the first, having, in addition, a fish in his hand, 
intending, we presume, to afford a symbolical confutation of the 
notion that these people live exclusively upon the spontaneous 
fruits of the earth, as has been sometimes slanderously asserted. 
The fourth has a head-dress of palm leaves, a poll-parrot on his 
finger, and indulges no other luxury of covering than a very 
economical strip of cloth about his loins. We are not quite cer- 
tain that either of these gentlemen, inhabitants of Amazonia, 
are engaged in trade in that country. They may belong to the 
nobility or gentry. But from the anxiety of that people to open 



104 FREE TRADE EMBARGOED BY BRAZIL. [Jan. 

intercourse with us, we presume that either would consent to act 
as consignee for any cargo of our products sent into those parts. 

In turning to the resume of our author to see what might be 
there said by way of a summing up, we find the following facts 
disclosed : In the first place, the valley of the Amazon is effec- 
tually closed against us and all the world by a contract made by 
Brazil with one Sefior De Souza who has the exclusive privilege 
of navigating the river by steam for thirty years. This right of 
navigation is very jealously guarded by the Brazilian authorities. 
So strict are they, that Lieutenant Herndon, who came down the 
river from Chasuta in his own boat, through the territory of 
Peru, was compelled to leave it at the Peruvian frontier (Taba- 
tinga) and come thence in a Brazilian craft. And but a short 
time before, some more enterprising than wise circus performers, 
who drifted the remains of their company to the same point on 
rafts, were not even allowed to pass the line on that primitive mode 
of conveyance, but were compelled to land and re-embark on a raft 
of Brazilian timber. Lieutenant Herndon argues that in this 
matter Brazil is standing in her own light, and volunteers the 
shedding of a few brilliant rays of his own to illumine the im- 
perial darkness. But we apprehend the contract must at least 
stand until some speculative Yankee shall buy Sefior De Souza 
out. After depicting in glowing colors what Amazonia is capa- 
ble of producing (as much could be said of Hayti), we are naively 
informed of some other interesting particulars which we notice 
lest they should be overlooked by superficial adventurers bent 
on seizing fortune by the armsful. The occupations of settlers 
are incidentally alluded to after this wise : 

"The brave old Catalan Zapaten was building himself a fire-proof 
house, mounting swivels at his gate, and swearing in the jargon of his 
province, that, protection or no protection, he would bide the brunt of the 
savages." 

Of the unhealthiness and the diseases of the country our 
author, while he certainly keeps the best foot forward, makes 
some admissions like the following : 

" There seeemd to be a narrow belt of country on each side of the 
Amazon where bilious fevers were particularly prevalent. [How wide, Mr. 
Herndon ?] These fevers are of malignant type. I was told that I ran 
little risk of taking the fever if I passed directly through. . . . The 



1854] ORNAMENTAL SNAKES. 195 

fever was spoken of with dread on the Trombetas, the Madeira, the Negro, 
and the Purus. " 

At Para yellow-fever and small-pox had of late years made 
great ravages. At Santarem, leprosy and elephantiasis are prev- 
alent. 

Cattle and horses were raised formerly in great numbers on 
the islands at and near the mouth of the Amazon, but a most 
deadly pestilence has of late years swept them nearly all off. 
Besides, the river often rises and inundates the islands, and the 
animals perish on the marshes and become food for the numerous 
alligators of the creeks that penetrate them, or are driven upon 
the dry knolls that rise above the surrounding waters, where they 
are destroyed by the tigers which there abound. Between the 
tigers, the inundations, and the pestilence, cattle-raising would 
seem to be any thing but a flourishing pursuit in this part of 
Brazil. 

But there are little domestic luxuries in the way of animals, 
of which the Amazonians enjoy, we fancy, pretty nearly a mo- 
nopoly. Hear our Lieutenant : 

" I saw a number of curious and beautiful animals at Para. Mr. Norris 
had some electric eels and a pair of large and beautiful anacondas. [He 
afterwards says these beautiful anacondas would hiss like a steam-engine.] 
Many gentlemen had tigers about their establishments. Mr. Pond, an 
American, had a pair of black tigers that were the most beautiful animals 
I have ever seen." 

We do not learn from our author that the residents of that 
country carry their penchant for beautiful animals so far as to 
make pets of the vampire bats, lizards, tarantulas, and alligators. 
Probably these delicious creatures are too plentiful to be es- 
teemed curiosities. The alligators are particularly common 
and by no means delightful in their familiarities. The Lieuten- 
ant speaks of one that was killed, in whose stomach was found 
a considerable piece of an undigested woman. 

Various other interesting items abound in our author's book. 
He speaks of being compelled to sleep in his boat when the river 
was high and the beaches covered, for fear of snakes and other 
uninvited company not more welcome. When he got in-doors, 
vampire bats clung around his ceiling and would drop on his 
blanket, leaving gouts of blood. He recommends that all travel- 



l'JC THE LARGE SPIDER FAMILY. [Jan. 

lers who go to Amazonia should learn to sleep in a bag. Doubt- 
less it should be made of leather, or other impervious material, 
if the occupant would escape being devoured. He found the 
sand-flies and mosquitoes a perpetual torment, blackening the 
whole skin with encrusted blood. Insects of all kinds are not 
less numerous, and they have this interesting peculiarity that 
they all either bite or sting. The spider family is one of the 
oldest and most flourishing in the country. Lieutenant Ilerndon 
speaks of one individual that constructed a web in his sight thirty 
feet in diameter. 

The Lieutenant has an amusing scheme for running a steamer 
from Chasuta, the head of navigation on the principal Peruvian 
tributary of the Amazon, to Tabatinga on the main river, at the 
extreme frontier of Peru, a distance of eight hundred miles. 
He says it will cost twenty thousand dollars to run the steamer 
one year. But as the gross annual value of the existing traffic 
is but twenty thousand dollars, our author has to display the 
most extraordinary agility in his calculations to prove that it 
would be a paying operation. He would make out his case but 
that several important elements are wanting. A principal one 
is, as he alleges, that there are not forty thousand dollars in 
money in the whole country. 

We need not go further with Lieutenant Herndon. He is a 
relative of Lieutenant Maury, and belongs to that class of vivacious 
and pushing enthusiasts who, because this age has achieved the 
steam-engine and the magnetic telegraph, believe nothing is to 
be left for future generations to accomplish ; who in their eager- 
ness to compass the whole world and subdue universal nature 
to the immediate dominion of Anglo-Saxon intelligence, quite 
overlook what constitutes the only worthy development and ap- 
propriate mission of the American people. They forget that if 
we want broader and more varied fields of industry for our pop- 
ulation, they can be most successfully sought at home. They 
forget that here in our own country is demanded all the enter- 
prise and energies of our own people. How many branches of 
industry languish among us for want of support ? We allow 
great interests to sink and go down that would annually enrich 
the country, not by beggarly thousands, but by millions. Our 
government lets the iron and lead and linen and silk interests of the 



1854] A WILD GOOSE CHASE. 197 

country fall, while it sends off an expedition like this of Lieu- 
tenant Herndon to hunt up distant twopenny markets for articles 
of industry whose productions it systematically discourages. Can 
folly and inconsistency go further ? We see England pushing 
her Consular system into every part of the world, and industri- 
ously discovering every corner into which her manufactures may 
be thrust, and we, not wishing to be outdone in any thing that 
savors of trade, think we must follow her example ; forgetting 
that England has first encouraged and built up her production to 
the highest point in every department, and that her surplus pro- 
ducts hang like a leaden weight upon her, unless vent is found 
for them abroad. The policy of England is at least consistent 
and harmonious. Ours is crude, inconsistent and ridiculous. 
England's great material necessity is new foreign markets. We 
have no such necessity. We are large importers of the very 
articles that these foreign markets require. We do not produce 
even for our own consumers, but leave them to be supplied by 
foreign workshops. If we made the most of our capacities for 
production, we could furnish millions upon millions of dollars 
annually to our own agriculturists, who now send three and four 
thousand miles for what they might have at their own doors with- 
out expense of transportation. Our growth, elevation, and culti- 
vation are to be best and most promoted by diversifying and em- 
ploying our industry at home, instead of sending it out in the 
vain attempt to gather grapes from the thistles of Tabatinga. 



SLAVERY MILITANT. 

[From the New York Tribune of January, 1854.] 

Slavery is an Ishmael. It is malevolent and malignant. It 
loves aggression, for when it ceases to be aggressive it stagnates 
and decays. It is the leper of modern civilization, but a leper 
whom no cry of " unclean" will keep from intrusion into unin- 
fected company. Hitherto slavery in this country has held its 
ground by sheltering itself behind the Constitution. It has 
played the role of persecuted virtue, and thus it has excited the 
sympathy of well-meaning persons who would never lend it aid 
or comfort but when it assumed the character of a distressed and 



198 SLAVERY AN ISHMAEL. [Jan. 

wronged appellant. It lias in past years pretended that it was 
assailed by injustice and fanaticism, which were destroying its 
supports and overthrowing the constitutional guards and defences 
placed around it. It has appealed to the North for aid on the 
ground of essential justice and constitutional obligation. It has 
declared its right to existence within the sphere of the States 
where it was established, and that to assail it, or in any way to 
interfere with it, was to be guilty of flagrant injustice. Its great 
charge against Abolitionists has been that they interfered with a 
domestic institution for which they had no responsibility and 
with which they had nothing to do. Its advocates have sought 
to keep the position of the suffering and persecuted party, and 
have thus enlisted a sort of sense of justice in the Free States, 
which, more potent than discriminating, has borne slavery on its 
shoulders through every contest. 

Though it has often been urged that slavery was aggressive in 
its nature, the proof of the fact to the common understanding 
has not been entirely conclusive. To many Northern men it 
has always seemed to be warring on the defensive side. But 
present appearances indicate that this erroneous view of slavery 
will soon be removed throughout the North. We see already 
the encroaching steps it is taking in Congress, as well as on the 
Pacific. It dares attempt the appropriation to its uses of terri- 
tory already consecrated to freedom by a solemn compact be- 
tween the North and the South. It is manifesting a determined 
purpose to cross the boundary behind which its pestilent influ- 
ences have hitherto been confined, and thus to disregard all con- 
siderations of justice, and trample upon its own sacred obliga- 
tions. It is showing itself to be a power which refuses to ad- 
here to its engagements, and breaks its faith at the first tempta- 
tion. Not content within its own proper limits, defined after a 
bitter contest, in which more than its due was yielded to its im- 
perious exactions, it now proposes to invade and overrun the soil 
of freedom and to unroll the pall of its darkness over virgin ter- 
ritory whereon a slave has never stood. Freedom is to be 
elbowed out of its own home to make room for the leprous in- 
truder. The free laborer is to be expelled that the slave may be 
brought in. 

It is plain to be seen how such an aggressive spirit will be 



1854] FOOTERS RESURRECTION. 199 

met. If slavery is determined upon the conquest of free terri- 
tory it will inevitably be resisted and paid in kind. If the con- 
viction obtains that slavery intends to disown its obligations and 
prove faithless to its own contracts, then will it follow that those 
who have hitherto admitted its rights under the Constitution 
will admit them no longer. Let but the sentiment gain foothold 
that slavery intends to make war upon the territory of freedom 
and seize and appropriate whatever it can wrest from the hands 
of free labor, and the banner of reclamation will be raised. If 
slavery may encroach upon the domain of freemen, freemen may 
encroach upon the domain of slavery. If slavery thinks this is a 
safe game to play at, let it be pursued as it has been begun. 



FOOTE. 
[From the New York Tribune of January 20, 1854.] 

We recorded Foote's funeral oration pronounced by himself 
some weeks ago. We knew he would rise again, and said so. 
His resurrection is announced. He has just turned up on a table 
at Washington. We published yesterday an outline of his thrill- 
ing remarks made therefrom. Foote has begun his Washington 
harangue just where he left it off when he departed from the 
Federal city three years ago. It is the same tune without varia- 
tions. Foote says he is now going to California to reside. 
We can hardly believe this, for Foote is a patriotic man, and we 
are sure he won't go away and leave us when the Union is in so 
much danger as he declares it to be. Such an act would be worse 
than if the Three Bells had deserted the sinking steamer San 
Francisco. We pray the Governor to think of Captain Crigh- 
ton's example, and remain with us during the heartrending 
struggle to preserve the Union that is about to take place. 
The solemn circumstances under which he is still spared to us 
should inspire him with sentiments of a deeper devotion than 
ever toward that country whom he snatched from destruction on 
that ever-memorable Saturday afternoon at four o'clock. 

We lament the loss of our great men who saved us all in 
1850, but while we have Foote left why should we despair ? Let 
us forget our sorrows, and think only of our mercies. 



200 SLAVERY FILIBUSTERS IN CALIFORNIA. [Jan. 

SLAVERY EXTENSION. 

[From the A T ew York Tribune of January 24.] 

We have private intelligence from San Francisco that the 
Walker expedition to Lower California, which, it would appear, 
has come to an untimely end, was set on foot for the purpose of 
introducing slavery into that country, and that it was winked at 
by the public authorities, and especially regarded with favor by 
the United States District Attorney of California. The slavery 
propagandists are not only active on this side of the Continent, 
but are industriously striving to fasten the curse of African ser- 
vitude upon our Pacific possessions. The most vigilant surveil- 
lance over the filibusters will alone prevent the success of their 
nefarious designs. The reinforcements which were sent from 
San Francisco to join Walker's expedition, amounting to over two 
hundred men, were allowed to depart without the slightest opposi- 
tion from the authorities there. The master of the vessel that 
carried them (the Anita) was the master, a few days before, of 
the Arrow, which craft was known to have been engaged for the 
same purpose. Complaints were, however, made against the 
Arrow, but they were summarily dismissed, mainly through the 
instrumentality, as we are informed, of Inge, the District Attor- 
ney. The Arrow having suspicion thus excited against her, 
could not be further used for the expedition, but her master was 
transferred to another vessel, and that craft got off with the fili- 
busters. The whole transaction shows that the authorities of 
the National Government at San Francisco do not intend to take 
any effectual steps to prevent the embarkation of any expedition 
which threatens to do nothing worse than invade Mexico and 
establish slavery on the Pacific coast. In behalf of the patri- 
archal institution the government is everywhere prompt and 
vigilant, but it has no restraints to impose upon the lawless pro- 
pagandism which is dictated by its aggressive srjirit. 

If by chance it has happened that Walker has escaped his de- 
serts, and that this last filibustering crew have been able to join 
him, the nucleus of a force sufficient to resist the Mexican au- 
thorities in Lower California is already formed, and the conse- 
quences may prove to be of the most formidable character. A 
force seen to be capable of sustaining itself against the local au- 



1854] TRAITOROUS PLOTTING AT WASHINGTON. 201 

thorities would soon be swollen from all quarters into an army as 
great as conquered Texas, and we might soon witness a re-enact- 
ment of the Texas drama in Lower California. 

It is a significant and alarming fact, and shows that powerful 
influences are at work to conquer Lower California, with the view 
to convert it into a Slave State, that so large a body of men could 
have been gathered and embarked so suddenly as the two hundred 
and eight men that were carried from San Francisco in the Anita. 
If they fail to find their accomplices, and the expedition is this 
time frustrated, it will be considered but an accident, not likely 
to happen on a second attempt. We are not, therefore, to con- 
sider the failure of the Walker expedition as by any means put- 
ting an end to the designs upon Lower California and Sonora by 
the Pacific filibusters, or even as dampening their ardor. The 
facility with which the late reinforcement of Lieutenant Wat- 
kins got away from San Francisco, and the triumphant dash with 
which they defiantly set sail upon their piratical cruise, will em- 
bolden all freebooters who are similarly disposed in the future, 
so long as the government, through its prosecuting officers, 
culpably connive at such scandalous proceedings. If a sugges- 
tion of an expedition from this city, to give one single Mary- 
land or Virginia negro his freedom were to be thrown out, the 
Federal authorities would be all eyes and ears at the infamous 
project, and guards would be set at every point from whence it 
could be suspected of departing. But no watchfulness is seen 
and no rebukes are heard from these same authorities when the 
project is not to liberate a single human being, but to lay the 
foundation and spread the nets for enslaving thousands, and rob- 
bing our neighbors of the territory on which to plant them. 



THE RASCALS AT WASHINGTON. 
[From the New York Tribune of January 20.] 

If the traitorous men at Washington who are plotting the 
surrender to slavery of the free territory west of the Mississippi 
believed that a majority of the North would fail to sustain the 
movement, they would instantly cease their clamor and skulk 
back and we should hear no more about it. 



202 THE MAJORITY AGAINST SLAVERY. [Jan. 

But they have adopted the belief that the passage of the 
compromise measures of 1850, and the triumphant election of 
Frank Pierce, have taken all the spirit out of the North, and 
that the mass of the voters are now ready to wink at any party 
iniquity, and sustain any party measure, whatever its enormity. 

We are not sure it is worth while to remove this impression. 
These deliberate violators of solemn compacts, these vagabond 
repudiators of obligations the most sacred, deserve to be roasted 
by the fires of the hottest public indignation. They ought to 
have the full benefit of the verdict of an aroused and indignant 
constituency, and be hung upon the gallows of public oppro- 
brium. Yet in mercy to the culprits who are thus provoking 
the incensed judgment of an outraged community, we will 
briefly state what opposition may be expected in the Free States 
to the infamous proposal to repeal the Missouri Compromise, and 
thus expose the rotten foundations of their hopes. 

There has been no time during the last seven years when the 
Whig and Freesoil parties have not been in a clear majority in 
nearly all the Northern States. The only ground upon which 
any doubt can be thrown on this presumption is the result of 
the last presidential election. But the vote of the Freesoil 
party in that contest was only partial, being but the ineffectual 
remonstrance (and so felt to be) of the more earnest of the Free- 
soilers against the settlement of the Compromise measures. 
And the vote of the Whigs in the North was notoriously the 
vote only of a party divided against itself. It was a contest 
utterly balked by cross purposes. The presidential election of 
1848, and the congressional elections of 1850 furnish the only 
grounds of any just judgment as to the real strength of the anti- 
slavery sentiment in the coimtry ; and these elections justify the 
statement that in every Free State that sentiment, whenever it 
could be fairly reached, would prove to be predominant. 

Assuming this to be so, the only question to be answered is, 
whether that sentiment can be aroused and consolidated and 
brought to bear in solid phalanx against the atrocious proposi- 
tion in question. The fools in Washington believe it cannot. 
We believe it can. And we believe further that this is by no 
means the whole strength of the North that will be brought into 
the field against this infamous project. We shall have the whole 



1854] THE NEBRASKA BILL, 208 

conservative force of the Free States of all parties against it. 
We shall have all the men who do not believe in violating con- 
tracts nor in repudiating solemn engagements on the side of 
earnest opposition. The moral stamina of the Free States will 
be set against the measure. Fair dealing and honest purposes 
will everywhere frown upon such faithlessness and fraud. Sober- 
minded men who have leaned to the side of the South in the 
late contests, on the ground that the Abolitionists were the ag- 
gressors, will turn and resist this movement as a gross outrage 
and aggression on the part of the South. 



THE NEBRASKA BILL. 

[From the New York Tribune.] 

Washington, February 13, 1854. 
The Nebraska bill kills every thing here in the shape of busi- 
ness before Congress stone dead ; and, as things now stand, so 
will they remain to the end. If the bill shall be defeated, some- 
thing may hereafter be done ; but if it be successful, then adieu 
to every expectation of Pacific railroads, River and Harbor 
bills, or anything else. All Congress will then be up to the war 
point, and nothing will go through. Fierce dissensions will 
have arisen between the members, and Washington will howl 
again. The excitement is already intense, and deepening every 
hour. Southern men are no less denunciatory of the movement 
in private circles than are those of the North. They declare 
the South did not ask for, would not have proposed, and does 
not want, the abrogation of the Missouri Compromise ; but as 
Northern men, backed and urged on by a Northern President, 
have introduced and recommended the measure, they are not 
going to refuse the boon. It is in view of the impending storm 
and of the outrageous swindle of the transaction, that they con- 
demn its authors. Indeed, the tone of feeling is such as to en- 
courage the belief that the whole crew of conspirators will be 
ultimately crushed by the scorn and indignation of both North 
and South, and perish in the storm of their own raising. It is a 
result richly due to such traitorous conduct as theirs ; and if so 
righteous a retribution should fall upon their heads, it would be 
a proper subject for a national thanksgiving. 



204 INTREPIDITY LACKING. [Feb 

But how strange is it that among so many Southern gentle- 
men in Congress who would gladly see this bill defeated, and 
who among themselves do not hesitate to deplore its introduc- 
tion and condemn its atrocity, none are to be found who dare 
openly vote against it ! We say none. There may be a few. 
Indeed, circumstances may arise which may deprive the bill of 
quite a number of Southern votes. But they cannot now be 
counted upon. Everywhere the cowardly excuse is given that 
to vote against the bill would be to court swift political destruc- 
tion at home. Or as a member, in speaking of the subject to- 
day said, " I might as well go upon the dome of the Capitol and 
throw myself down upon the pavement. " It is but an obvious 
remark to say that such acknowledgments evince a grovelling 
estimate and a melancholy obtuseness in regard to the duties of a 
public man and a legislator. But alas ! such is human nature ! 
One noble example at this moment of a lofty and chivalrous 
spirit of self-sacrifice would put to flight a thousand craven ap- 
prehensions like these, its followers would not be few, nor fail 
to receive their reward even in this world. For there is no vir- 
tue more admired nor more habitually recognized by the common 
mind than intrepidity, whether it be moral or physical. Should 
no higher motive prevail it is to be at least hoped that this pal- 
pable consideration may animate some to take an elevated posi- 
tion on this great question, and fearlessly assert their personal 
dignity and independence by a vote declaratory of their real 
sentiments. Amid the apparently conflicting claims of policy 
and duty it is well to remember the valuable instruction, that he 
who would save his life shall lose it, and that he who will lose his 
life shall find it. Whenever it shall come to this, that Congress is 
filled with men who possess none of the spirit of self-devotion, 
the country will become the constant and worthless prey of dem- 
agogues such as are now practising their infernal arts upon that 
body through this Nebraska bill. 

Unfortunately, however, we fear that reflections like these, 
pertinent though they be, will get no votes against the great in- 
iquity. What is wanted is action, action, action. The North 
must rouse in its might and its majesty. The people must declare 
themselves. The infamous scheme must fall, if it falls at all, 
before the direct assaults of the people. It must be stunned by 



1854] LETTER FROM GEORGE F. TALBOT. 205 

their blows and be blasted by their maledictions. It is no time 
for apathy and no time for soft words. Congress was never 
more sensitive to the public voice than it is to-day upon this meas- 
ure. Its attention is on the alert and its ears are wide open. 
Let them be filled with the accumulated thunders of a universal 
condemnation of this atrocious aggression upon the Free States. 
Let those thunders roll till they shake the pillars of the Capitol 
and resound throughout the Continent. Public meetings should 
be everywhere held, petitions should be everywhere circulated. 
Every hand should be raised and every tongue should be loosened 
against this crowning infamy. Let the united voices of the mil- 
lions of the Free States rise and swell like the increasing roar of 
the nearing cataract, until they shall drown every caitiff note of 
approval of this monster fraud, and till every ear in Washington 
shall feel as though it were pierced by the sound of an arch- 
angel's trumpet. J. S. P. 



|From Hon. George F. Talbot.] 

East Mactttas, Me., February 14, 1854. 
Jas. S. Pike, Esq. 

Dear Sir : I take the liberty to send you an article for the Tribune. 
It is of no particular value or interest, and I should be right glad to 
hold forth upon some of the great questions of politics, but hesitate to 
do so, first, because it seems an impertinence to interfere with the de- 
partment of the editors, and secondly, because I am too far off to com- 
ment effectually upon any passing event. 

Your own labors and that of your co-editors are earning for you the 
honor and gratitude of all lovers of freedom and justice in the land. 
The position of the Tribune is now one of transcendent influence. We 
can almost hope to turn the scale of battle against the slavery plotters 
with such effective aid. Every man, and woman too, of education, 
culture, and moral feeling, at least within the circle of my acquaintance, 
is talking about the Tribune. You cannot imagine how firm a hold it 
has on the affections of all the best people. 

I appreciate your kind offer to publish my communications, not 
particularly on account of the one I now send, as for something better 
which I may be hereafter inspired with. 

Very respectfully yours, Geo. F. Talbot. 



20G ARGUMENTS OF STEPHENS AND BADGER. [Feb. 

THE ARGUMENTS FOR NEBRASKA. STATED AND REFUTED. 
[From the New York Tribune.'] 

Washington, February 18, 1854. 

All that is said in favor of the repeal of the Missouri Cora- 
promise may be divided into three heads : 1st, The argument 
for it. 2d, The excuse or apology for it. 3d, What is in- 
tended to be accomplished by it. 

Various Southern gentlemen have spoken and enlightened 
us fully on these three points. We have had speeches from 
Badger, Stephens, and Chase, and running commentaries from 
Judge Butler and Governor Brown on each of them, all within 
a few days, so that the whole story is before us. Stephens's 
speech in the House yesterday was more explicit and straight 
out than the others in some respects : 1st, Because he always is 
pointed and able, and 2d, Because he don't hesitate to say what 
he thinks and what are the real sentiments and objects of the 
slave power. 

We lamented that there was nobody to rise and spike the 
guns of the lean Georgian's argument on the spot as soon as 
they were discharged. 

Briefly, then : Of the argument to repeal the Missouri Com- 
promise, first, Mr. Badger, Mr. Stephens, the Union news- 
paper, and all the talkers and writers, great and small, say they 
put the question of whether slavery shall or shall not go into 
the Territories upon purely Republican ground. 

They say they wish to leave the subject to the people. 
Mr. Stephens spent half his hour on Friday in iterating this 
argument in every variety of statement, illustrating the sound- 
ness of the doctrine, and in declaiming upon it. He dwelt 
with the greatest unction upon the rights of the people of the 
States and Territories to establish their own institutions. So did 
Mr. Badger. So does the Union. So do all hands. This is 
the one great point — the rights of the people of the States and 
Territories to establish their own institutions. It is asserted as 
the doctrine of non-intervention by the National Government in 
regard to slavery, and as being the only Constitutional as well 
as the only Republican doctrine. 

Now, in the first place, they do not mean what they say, be- 
cause they have not the remotest intention of giving to the col- 



1854] MR. CHASE'S AMENDMENT. 207 

ored inhabitants who may dwell in the States and Territories 
any voice in the matter. Yet the colored population are cer- 
tainly people, and rather more interested in this question of 
slavery than anybody else. Why the men who argue in this 
way should desire to exclude the black and yellow population 
from taking any part in this decision of the question is not so 
clear ; for the colored person being alleged by them to be in a 
happier state while in slavery than when in a state of freedom, 
there should be no objection to letting him give his testimony 
on this point. If the people, the whole people of the States 
and Territories could be allowed to vote on the question of sla- 
very, it would be Kepublican, and not a voice among the friends 
of freedom anywhere would be lifted against a decision of the 
question of liberty or slavery in any State or Territory or king- 
dom under heaven. But our Badgers and Stephenses and other 
eulogists of the rights of the people do not mean any thing like 
this. In speaking of the people they simply mean their masters. 

But this is not the reply we wish to make to the argument 
of these gentlemen. They say the people of the Territories 
should themselves decide whether they will or will not have 
slavery among them. But do they mean that even the white 
men of the Territories shall determine this question ? To hear 
the declamations of these gentlemen upon the principles of self- 
government, to listen to their lofty heroics upon non-interven- 
tion of the National Government with the affairs of the people 
of the States and Territories, one would suppose of course that 
they meant this and nothing else. That if this is not what they 
are driving at, they mean nothing at all, or they are the great- 
est of deceivers and hypocrites. Now mark ! We bring these 
gentlemen square to the point to show that they do not mean 
what they say, and that their declarations on this head are false 
and deceptive, and intended to be so. 

On Wednesday last Mr. Chase offered in the Senate an 
amendment to Mr. Douglas's amendment touching the rights of 
the people of the Territories in respect to slavery. Mr. Chase's 
amendment was in these words : 

" nnder which the people of the Territories, through their ap- 
propriate representatives, may, if they see fit, prohibit the existence of 
slavery therein." 



208 REPLY TO ARGUMENTS. [Feb. 

Of course everybody would say in view of the arguments we 
have recited as the stock in trade of the friends of the Nebraska 
bill, that the amendment was at once adopted. No, sir ! Mr. 
Badger said, No, sir — Judge Butler said, No, sir — Governor 
Brown said, No, sir. And why ? Governor Brown gave the 
reason. He said the people of the Territories had no authority 
under the Constitution to exclude slavery therefrom. Mr. Chase's 
amendment was not acted upon, but it will be rejected by a 
unanimous vote of the friends of the Nebraska bill whenever a 
vote on it is taken. 

Here then is the argument of the advocates of the repeal of 
the Missouri Compromise, and here is the practical commentary 
thereon by the very men who are using it. 

Is it asked, What, then, do these men really mean ? We 
will state what they mean. The Nebraska bill now before Con- 
gress allows of a territorial legislature to be chosen by the people. 
It provides for the appointment of a Governor by the President. 
It also provides for the appointment of Judges by the President. 
It then stipulates that the Governor may veto any law that the 
legislature passes, and it is an unqualified veto. Though the 
legislature may pass a law excluding slavery ten times in suc- 
cession, and unanimously pass it, the Governor may say I forbid, 
and the act of the legislature becomes wholly nugatory. But 
this is not all. The Judges may sit in council on any law passed 
by the legislature and approved by the Governor, and declare 
it unconstitutional and void. Neither is this all. Congress 
may revise any act passed by the legislature, approved by the 
Governor, and declared constitutional by the Judges, and with- 
out a why or a wherefore repeal it, and sweep it from the statute 
book. Now, when we consider first that we have an Adminis- 
tration urging on this Nebraska bill with a view of introducing 
slavery into that Territory, who avow their intention to " crush 
out" freedom, who will appoint the Governor and appoint the 
Judges of that Territory, which officers will, of course, be men 
reflecting the peculiar sentiments of the Administration on sla- 
very, and who will be responsible to nobody and no interest in 
the Territory, and who will be liable to instant removal by the 
President if they or either of them fail to execute Ins desires and 
purposes, we may see, when we consider this, what chance 



1854] PLAIN SOPHISTRIES. 209 

the bill offers for the exclusion of slavery. And secondly, when 
we reflect that after an act shall have been passed by the terri- 
torial legislature, approved by the Governor, sanctioned by 
the Judges, and acquiesced in by the President, that Congress 
may repeal it, and that Congress the father and supporter of 
the whole Nebraska iniquity, we may have a still clearer per- 
ception of the chances to exclude slavery by the people of the 
Territory. 

What these men mean, then, by leaving the subject of slavery 
to the people of the Territories is this, and nothing more and 
nothing less. It is to establish a government for them of such a 
character that the people cannot possibly keep slavery out, let 
them desire to do so ever so much, and vote to do it ever so 
often. Our exposition demonstrates this. The Badgers and 
Stephenses and Unions, and all the advocates of Nebraska, little 
and big, are thus guilty of a monstrous fraud in the use of their 
one great argument that it is the design of the legislation contem- 
plating the repeal of the Missouri restriction to leave the intro- 
duction or exclusion of slavery to the people of the Territories, 
which that restriction now covers and protects. Instead of giv- 
ing that power to the people, they, by the provision of the bill, 
as we have shown, absolutely and unqualifiedly withhold it, and 
put that power solely in the hands of the President and Congress. 
Either of them and both of them have entire control over the 
subject. These advocates of Nebraska are not, then, after non- 
intervention, as they pretend, but are making use of active in- 
tervention in favor of slavery. And in addition to the evidence 
of it which the bill itself exhibits, and which was manifested in 
the Senate, proceedings to which we have adverted, it is notorious 
that whenever these men are pressed on the point of whether 
they mean to recognize the rights of the people of the Terri- 
tories, they invariably turn up their noses at the suggestion, re- 
pudiate the idea, and derisively characterize it as " squatter sov- 
ereignty. ' ' Can there be a greater outrage upon honesty, or a 
grosser imposition upon credulity than this pretended argument 
in favor of the repeal of the Missouri Compromise and upon 
which it alone rests ? 

Let us next briefly dispose of the apology or excuse for the 
contemplated repeal. This excuse is that the North itself has 



210 TUB .MISSOURI COMPROMISE DESCRIBED. [Feb. 

already repeatedly violated that compromise. Mr. Stephens re- 
cited a number of votes of Congress to show that Northern rep- 
resentatives had voted against admitting slave States South of 
the line 36° 30', and had also voted against extending that line 
to the Pacific, and this he assumed to be an abandonment and 
violation of that compromise. Mr. Badger dwelt upon the same 
facts with a most lawyer-like tenacity, as if it were an excuse for 
playing the rascal, that the North has already done the same thing. 
In other words, that as the North has ineffectually attempted 
to deprive the South of certain implied rights under the Missouri 
Compromise, the South is therefore justified in turning round 
and robbing the North of all she can lay her hands on. This is 
a precious mode of justifying its scoundrelism, even if the South 
has the provocation it alleges. 

But what constitutes a violation of the Missouri Compromise ? 
A bargain was entered into in 1820 between the North and South, 
or more properly between the conflicting principles of slavery and 
freedom, through the representatives in Congress of that day, 
that slavery should be excluded from all the then existing terri- 
tory of the United States north of 36° 30', on condition that Mis- 
souri should come in as a Slave State north of that line. This was 
the bargain, and the whole of the bargain. Beyond this there 
was no stipulation or agreement whatever. At the most there 
was nothing besides an implication that slavery might find its 
way into States south of that line. But there was no agreement 
nor understanding that it should do so. The bargain was ex- 
plicit. Missouri was to be admitted as a Slave State on one side, 
and slavery was to be excluded north of 3G° 30' as the condition 
of that admission on the other. To say that that bargain, which, 
thus made, found its way on the statute book, was not agreed to 
by all of the North, or by all of the South, is neither here nor 
there. Such an agreement would be a miracle. To say that it 
has never been unanimously sustained by either North or South 
is to state an inevitable fact. But it is a fact that proves nothing 
either one way or the other. Who dreams of unanimity in such 
a case ? The expectation of it is an absurdity. "What folly then 
to pretend that because Northern men or Southern men have 
been since found who disregarded it, or were in favor of its 
abrogation, that this fact annuls the contract. It is a trans- 



1854] NAKED ASSUMPTIONS EXPOSED. 211 

parent fiction. Yet upon this fact hangs the whole argument of 
those astute lawyers and statesmen, Messrs. Badger and Ste- 
jDhens, that the North has violated the Missouri Compromise. 
The North has not been unanimous in sustaining it, forsooth ! 
Neither was it unanimous in favor of its original enactment, but 
far from it. And what is true of the North is true of the South. 
But is it any the less a compact or legislative contract ? Neither 
was any such unanimity requisite. A majority of Congress made 
the bargain, as only a majority could. And it stands unannulled 
and unrepealed till a majority shall annul or repeal it. Away, 
then, with the flimsy sophistry of attempting to show that that 
contract has been repudiated by votes of minorities and single in- 
dividuals. 

But the Missouri Compromise cannot be violated in any other 
way than by repealing the restriction respecting slavery. The 
only unfulfilled condition of the bargain of 1820 is that slavery 
shall not go into territory north of 3G° 30'. The compensation 
for that restriction was paid down by the admission of Missouri 
as a Slave State. Good or bad, right or wrong, proper or im- 
proper, such was the bargain. And it is a bargain which a ma- 
jority of Congress only can repudiate, and only in this one way. 
Neither a majority of the North nor a majority of the South can 
alone do it, if they would. To assume that the North has done 
it is a double absurdity ; for, in the first place, she has not yet 
found, nor attempted to find, any Congressional majority in its 
favor ; and in the next to do it is for her to tear the seal from 
off her own bond. 

One point on this head remains. Messrs. Badger and 
Stephens contend that the refusal to extend the line of 36° 30' 
through the Pacific is a violation of the Missouri Compromise. 
What upon earth the one proposition has to do with the other 
would puzzle the wisest to tell. The line of 36° 30' referred to 
specific territory of about ten degrees of longitude in width. 
The establishment of it neither created nor intimated any obliga- 
tion to establish any coincident line anywhere on the face of the 
earth. And it is an implication of the most extravagant and 
absurd character to pretend it. As well claim the line should be 
run through to the Atlantic as to the Pacific. It is a naked as- 
sumption which carries its own refutation on its face. 



</ 



212 INTENTIONS OF THE SOUTH. [Feb. 

One thin^ alone is to be added, and you will have the whole 
of the affirmative side of the Nebraska question in the briefest 
possible compass. This is the view which the South takes of the 
character of the Northern opposition to the bill, and of its own 
objects which will be accomplished by it. For this develop- 
ment we are mainly indebted to Mr. Stephens, though do not 
let it be presumed for a moment that his views are confined to 
himself alone. He speaks for the South. It is, then, perfectly 
well understood that the South, by this Nebraska movement, 
nationalizes slavery, and brings the nose of the North to the 
grindstone, as well as that she intends and expects to hold it 
there. Five-and-twenty or thirty Northern doughfaces in the 
Lower House is enough to enable her to ride roughshod over 
freedom and the Free States, and these she expects to secure. 
The experience of 1850 has rendered the slave power arrogant 
and domineering. It firmly believes in the dishing doctrine of 
"crushing out," and that the Democratic masses of the North 
can be relied upon as her faithful allies in this work. This work 
the South will now go on to consummate. The repeal of the 
Missouri Compromise is but the first step. 

We trust the people of the North will exhibit a proper degree 
of humility and manifest an obedient temper toward their new 
rulers. Let them be prepared to submit with a good grace to 
the domination utter and complete of the slave power ; or else 
let them rise in their might and grind every Northern doughface 
and traitor into powder. J. S. P. 



A PLOT EXPOSED. 

[From the Neiu York Tribune.] 

Washington, February 23, 1854. 
The extraordinary course of the Southern Whigs and the re- 
markable changes and subterfuges of Douglas on Nebraska, have 
been matters of profound astonishment in all quarters. It has 
been quite impossible to account for the nimble-footed alacrity 
with which Southern Whig Senators have rushed forth to be- 
come confederates of Douglas and Pierce in this enormity. It 
has been equally difficult to see why Douglas has shifted his 



1854] TOOMBS AND STEPHENS. 213 

position so often, and, from first proposing to leave the Missouri 
Compromise untouched, has gone through the whole gamut of 
tergiversation, till at length he came out flat-footed for its un- 
qualified repeal. But now the mystery is solved, the plot is un- 
ravelled. 

It turns out that those twin brothers of agitation, audacity, 
and imperious misrule, Messrs. Toombs and Stephens, of Geor- 
gia, are the men who have instigated, nourished, and finally ma- 
tured this nefarious scheme ; and that Douglas and the Presi- 
dent are but their confederates in the plot. The whole move- 
ment has been vailed in obscurity from the fact that Douglas has 
been made to assume the position of leader in the treason. 
Both he and Mr. Pierce have been led into their willing apostacy 
by the adroit arts of these professors of political mischief. Not 
that the sin of the apostates is any the less for this. It is only 
the meaner and the more easily explained. Hitherto we have 
regarded them as the originators of the foul treachery, and the 
enormity of such a voluntary fraud and outrage we have felt 
ourselves unable to characterize in the language it deserved. 
Our sentiments toward them are modified in regarding them 
simply as the tools and instruments of this matchless pair. 
Our sentiments are changed to this extent, that we are now able 
to measure their culpability, whereas before it was immeasurable. 
We see now how it is that the scheme was initiated, and we are in 
possession of the secret springs of the ground and lofty tum- 
bling of Douglas, which have been a matter hitherto so inexplica- 
ble. 

Since Mr. Toombs's accession to the Senate until his mani- 
festation to-day, he has been an apparently quiet member. But 
everybody who knows any thing of the fiery, restless, and imperi- 
ous character of the man, and his unquestioned capacity, knows 
that this is but a superficial appearance. The real truth is, that 
instead of being idle he has been hard at work during the session 
in aid of his long cherished object of extinguishing all political 
and legislative opposition to slavery, and in bringing it under 
the active protection of Congress, and also in crippling the power 
and abridging the area of the Free States. This is no new thing 
with Mr. Toombs. Many of our readers will remember the 
extravagant Georgia resolutions of 1849-50, whose paternity is 



214 GENERAL TAYLOR'S INDIGNATION. [Feb. 

to be imputed to him and his ally Mr. Stephens, wherein it was 
announced that that sovereign State would withdraw her repre- 
sentatives in Congress and take up her line of inarch out of the 
Union in the event of the happening of one of two events — one 
of these being the admission of Calif omia as a State, and the 
other the passage of the Wilmot Proviso by Congress. At that 
period Messrs. Toombs and Stephens were the rampant propa- 
gators of the policy of resistance to the government unless its 
legislation accorded with their demands for slavery. It was 
within a few months after the passage of those extraordinary 
resolutions, and but just before the death of General Taylor, that 
these two gentlemen, accompanied by Humphrey Marshall, Mr. 
Fillmore's Minister to China, and one or two other gentlemen 
from the South, proceeded to the White House and peremp- 
torily demanded to know of General Taylor if he did not intend 
to change his course respecting the admission of California and 
the organization of New Mexico, accompanying the demand 
with what was substantially a threat to subvert the government 
if he did not consent to yield to their insolent exactions. They 
dared to beard the lion in his den. General Taylor's memorable 
reply is well known. He felt himself insulted and outraged be- 
yond expression by their demands. He indignantly drove them 
from his presence in language far more significant than polite. 
His determined spirit was roused in all its force by the scenes of 
that interview, and they were the theme of his delirious mo- 
ments in his last illness, and undoubtedly hastened his death. In 
reply to their daring insinuation that the South would resist the 
government, and that the Territory of New Mexico would be 
invaded by Texas, and thus become the battle-ground whereon 
the South would assert her rights, General Taylor declared to 
them in words of fire, that if that contest came he was deter- 
mined to do his entire duty. That if necessary he would him- 
self repair to the field, and raising the standard of the Stars and 
Stripes with his own hand, would conquer their traitor demon- 
stration, or leave his bones to bleach upon the plain. He after- 
wards scornfully added that he ' ' feared that the d d rascals 

would back out." This self -constituted committee of faction 
then slunk from the old hero's presence, and hied to their con- 
federates, where a report of their failure to intimidate the Pres- 



1854] THE SLAVEHOLDERS RETREAT. 215 

ident was made in terms of utter despondency at their pro- 
spects. At that celebrated interview with General Taylor the 
domineering spirit of slavery extension was effectually quelled. 
And if General Taylor had lived we should have had no sub- 
sequent compromises and heard no more of its brazen demands, 
its impudent threatenings, and its infamous aggressions now pro- 
jected. But he died, and that spirit renewedly reared its black 
head, cracked its lash over the North, and strode onward to 
victory. 

Such are the antecedents of Messrs. Toombs and Stephens 
touching the important movements of 1850, so closely connected 
with those of to-day. Their acts were not trivial nor unmeaning. 
Mr. Toombs is a man of great resolution and indomitable energy. 
With ordinary men his lire and impetuosity are sure to succeed. 
His fierce invectives, his implacable hatreds, his bold front, his 
urgent and imperative demeanor would, in 1850, have triumphed 
over almost any other person than General Taylor. Mr. Ste- 
phens is Mr. Toombs's potent ally, a man of keen intellect, in- 
tense passion, and fierce and despotic nature. These are the 
men who, professing to be Whigs, destroyed the Whig ascen 
dency in Congress by defeating Mr. Winthrop's election for 
Speaker in 1850 ; who made war upon General Taylor and his 
Cabinet, and who have been the stormy spirits of disorganization 
and misrule and savage agitation from the beginning of their 
career. They now appear as the projectors and backers of a 
bolder and more gigantic outrage than was ever before hatched 
in their prolific nest of evil. And, melancholy and disgraceful 
to say, they find the whole body of Southern Whigs (we trust 
yet with a few honorable exceptions) the willing instruments of 
their atrocious scheme to wrest the Territory north of 36° 30' 
from freedom and conquer it for slavery. J. S. P. 



THE TROY WHIG. 

[From the New York Tribune.'] 

Washington, February 25, 1854. 
The editor of the Troy Whig is a thin-skinned youth. We 
beg to assure him that in alluding to Mr. Badger we did not in- 
tend to disparage the ex-President of Buffalo. We shall never 



216 THE TROY WHIG. [March 

disturb that amiable gentleman in the private station for which 
he is peculiarly fitted, and which he graces so well. We have 
none of those sentiments of personal hostility toward any man 
which appear to rankle in the bosom of the acrid editor of the 
Whig toward all who did not support Mr. Fillmore when he 
did. Doubtless the editor thinks this an unpardonable offence, 
but others who have a wider range of vision, might not agree 
with him. We excuse this infirmity of judgment on his part, 
for we dare say it is the fruit of private griefs. We trust they 
will all be ultimately assuaged by a few hundred a year from some 
successful political speculation. His complimentary insinuations 
cause us to feel great regard toward the editor of the Whig, and 
makes us lament that we cannot accede to his request to stop 
writing. His suggestion that upon our course may depend the 
fate of the Whig party, and a Whig senator in New York, 
deeply affects our sensibilities, but we are sure it is the offspring 
of a too partial judgment. We thank him for the compliment 
that our pen is potent to make and unmake parties and senators, 
but our modesty forbids us to accept it as a truth. He will ex- 
cuse us, therefore, if we continue to do hereafter as we have 
done heretofore, and write when the spirit moves us to utterance. 
Our benevolent sentiments prompt us to reciprocate the sugges- 
tions of the Whig, and recommend its editor to abandon the 
quill ; but not for the reasons he gives why we should do so ; 
but from the conviction that his silence would improve his own 
reputation, by allowing the friendly veil of obscurity and for- 
getfulness to fall upon his folly. J. S. P. 



NIGHT SCENES EST THE PASSAGE OF THE NEBRASKA BILL. 
[From the New York Tribune.} 

Washington, Saturday, March 4, 1854. 
The scenes of last night were a fitting finale to the passage 
through the Senate of the infamous Nebraska bill. The long 
day's session extended into the evening. The evening wore on 
to midnight. Midnight passed and the cock crew, and daylight 
broke before the vote was taken. At length, after an earnest 
and deprecatory speech of General Houston against the measure, 



1854] NIGHT SCENES IN LEGISLATION. 217 

the record was finally made at five o'clock in the morning, after 
an exciting session of nineteen hours. And so ended the first 
step in this great iniquity. 

Of the noticeable events of the night let me first refer to Doug- 
las's heated speech, which, commencing before midnight, extended 
to three o'clock in the morning. In this performance Mr. Doug- 
las appeared in several distinct characters. As Chairman of the 
Committee reporting the bill, as Agitator- General of the slavery 
question, as the Chief of Doughfaces, as the Bully of Slavery 
and as the Impersonation of Injured Innocence. In the latter 
character his efforts were the greatest and his impression the 
most marked. He attacked Mr. Chase and Sumner with un- 
surpassed virulence, and poured out torrents of vehement vitu- 
peration and insult upon their heads because in their address 
they characterized this measure of the repeal of the Missouri 
Compromise as an outrage, and suggested " presidential aspira- 
tions" as being at the bottom of it. The high pitch of wrath to 
which Mr. Douglas rose in this part of his remarks could only 
be accounted for on the supposition that he considered his presi- 
dential chances very seriously damaged by the opposition to the 
bill beginning with that report and coming down to this time. 
Well, it was unjust to the Illinois patriot to hint that he could 
be actuated by selfish considerations in concocting his variously 
modified changeling, or to term it a criminal attempt to betray 
the interests of freedom and the North. Of course he never 
thought of winning Southern votes, or of bartering off the terri- 
tory north of 36° 30' for the Presidency. Mr. Douglas is too 
virtuous a man for that. Neither is the repeal of the restriction 
on slavery any outrage. Mr. Douglas asserted with an air of the 
utmost innocence that that repeal was no part of the object of 
his bill, it was simply an immaterial incident of it. That he 
himself was no Northern man nor Southern man, but a capacious 
national man, who had no eye for such small things as liberty 
and Northern interests. He desired it to be understood that he 
was acting as a senator and only dealing with principles, and 
that an obstacle like that of the line of 36° 30' was a small thing 
to interrupt his grand march while following where those princi- 
ples led. Virtuous and lofty Mr. Douglas ! He is never slip- 
pery, and never does any pettifogging ! 



218 DOUGLASS PERSONALITIES. [March 

But the personal aspect of the speech is the only part I need 
allude to. It offended the dignity of the Senate and the nation. 
It was a revival of some of the scenes of Foote's time, and 
quite as scandalous as any speech that that political wasp ever 
inflicted upon a disgusted audience. It disclosed the fact that 
Douglas himself is any thing but a man of true courage, and that 
he knew he was dealing with men who had an instinctive aver- 
sion to all personal broils. If he had been a man of genuine 
intrepidity, and felt as he professed to feel, he would never have 
sought the arena of the Senate to settle his personal grievances 
with the Freesoil senators. For the language and tone he 
adopted toward them was wholly alien to that body, and disgrace- 
ful alike to it and to him that it was indulged in. Besides, Mr. 
Chase told him in reply to his declaration that he, Mr. Chase, 
was elected by a " corrupt bargain, ' ' that whoever said that 
stated a falsehood. This remark Mr. Douglas resented in no 
other way than by going on with his invective and continuing 
his buzzard feast on the address of the Freesoil senators. His 
manner and language were such as to imperiously demand the 
interposition of the chair, or that the part of Benton upon 
Foote, in the celebrated pistol scene, should have been re-enacted 
upon the spot. But he was allowed to proceed without let or 
hindrance till it seemed there could be no fitting termination to 
it but by a general barroom melee and knock down. All that 
was wanting to make the scene complete and harmonious was 
the presence of Tom Hyer and Yankee Sullivan on the floor in 
a regular set-to. The galleries were allowed to applaud without 
rebuke, and Senator Gwin rapped applause on the floor with his 
big double-headed cane as though he were in the pit of a the- 
atre. Other senators were scarcely less obstreperous. Yet, let 
it be remembered that when at one period of Mr. Charles Sum- 
ner's late oration a faint applause was heard in the galleries, the 
presiding officer called to order with the most authoritative man- 
ner, and declared that at the next slightest demonstration they 
should be cleared. And this same Senator Gwin, with a flushed 
face and imperious manner, spoke out on that occasion and said, 
" Do not wait for that, do it at once." Let the incident be 
marked. Mr. Douglas took especial care, however, to avoid all 
collision with certain other gentlemen opposed to the bill. Such, 



1854] SENATORS WADE AND CHASE. 219 

for example, as Mr. Houston and Mr. Truman Smith. Either 
of these gentlemen would have promptly paid their respects to 
him on the slightest provocation. Mr. Smith especially would 
have been glad of the opportunity to have transfixed the bluster- 
ing hero as he has more than once done already. But Mr. 
Douglas's laurels are only won in a war upon non-resistants. 

But the insolence of the slave power has not alone been 
shown through Mr. Douglas in the closing scenes of this debate. 
It was exhibited on the previous evening by Mason, of Virginia, 
and Badger, of North ^Carolina. They alternately played the 
overseer for several hours, also taking Chase and Sumner for 
their text. Their course was as insulting as they knew how to 
make it, and insufferable in a body of equals. Judge Wade 
poured out some of his scorching sarcasms upon them, and told 
them that however their manners might suit the plantation, they 
were not fit for the Senate. In the skirmishes of the day Mr. 
Stuart, of Michigan, came up at one time quite manfully, and 
to everybody's delight spoke like a man with a soul in his body 
on the subject of Douglas and dragooning, but he faded out be- 
fore the close, and quietly went back to the ranks as an obedient 
subaltern. In that day's debate Mr. Chase acquitted himself 
with great credit and ability. His response to Mason was severe 
and indignant in tone, yet courteous in manner. 

To return to last night's debate. The dignified bearing of 
Governor Seward, in his various replies and explanations to Doug- 
las, were a marked feature. Mr. Wade also distinguished him- 
self again by some pointed and clinching observations addressed 
to the defenders and apologists of slavery. His repeated sallies 
won him great favor and applause. • But perhaps the most signi- 
ficant event of the night was the maiden speech of the new Sen- 
ator from Maine, Mr. Pitt Fessenden. His debut was eminently 
successful. He commanded strict attention from all sides, and 
enforced the conviction on all the senators present that not only 
had a new member come among them, but that a champion had 
made his appearance in the body. Mr. Fessenden 's speech was 
bold, fluent, clear, and hard as flint. He addressed the South- 
ern gentlemen as if they were old acquaintances, and told them 
that if agitation was renewed with increased vigor in consequence 
of the passage of the Nebraska bill, he wished them to under- 



220 WM. PITT FESSENDEN. [March 

stand now that they would have nobody to thank for it bi.t 
themselves. And that, for his part, if the bill did pass, they 
might put him down as just beginning to agitate. As for any 
threats of dissolution of the Union on account of agitation, he 
desired them to consider further that they disturbed him not at 
all. He had heard them before and he knew how empty all 
such threats were. In reply to Judge Butler, who warmly de- 
clared that the South were not pretending to favor disunion in 
order to quiet agitation, but were really in earnest, " Yery well," 
said Mr. Fessenden, " I beg you not to delay any business of that 
sort on my account." Several other hits fell from him in rapid 
succession. One bystander remarked that his guns seemed to 
be all double-shotted, and another observed that it was the best 
speech he had heard in the Senate on the subject, for it was one 
straight to the point and one that it required no effort to under- 
stand. 

The friends of freedom may congratulate themselves upon 
the acquisition to the Senate at this juncture of such a man as 
Mr. Fessenden. As Mr. Sumner remarked, " We felt that a 
champion had come." 

The bill was thus manfully fought in the Senate by its op- 
rjonents, and goes into the House with the stamp and seal of 
more than midnight darkness upon it ; challenging a united 
and determined opposition to it in that body. 

"We have every assurance both in the nature of the bill and the 
circumstances under which it has at last forced its way through 
the Senate, thatits opponents there will in no respect come short 
of their duty. Mr. Benton is reported as preparing a demon- 
stration against it. He says : " The Senate is emasculated, sir. 
Yes, sir, it is emasculated. A majority do not belong to the 
masculine gender, sir. No, sir, do not belong to the masculine 
gender." J. S. P. 



BENTON AND DOUGLAS. 
[From the New York Tribune.'] 

Washington, March 20, 1854. 
Mr. Douglas continues to be full of Nebraska. He has every 
man in the House of Representatives marked and numbered, 



1854] MR. BENTON ON THE BILL. 221 

and firmly believes the bill will go through by a decisive major- 
ity. He feels that if it does go, that his fortunes are made ; 
but that if it fails, he sinks never to rise again. Similar senti- 
ments are entertained by the President. Superhuman efforts 
will therefore be made to put the measure through the House. 

Per Contra: The leading Tennessee Whigs, Hunt, of Lou- 
isiana, and Old Bullion, are ready and ripe for a powerful on- 
slaught on the bill. These men excite the highest admiration 
for their fearlessness and independence. Nerved alone by con- 
victions of duty and sentiments of honor, they proudly defy the 
corruptions and the debauchery of the hour. John Bell, Cullom, 
and Etheridge are among the noblest specimens of a genuine 
manhood. They can never be forgotten. Hunt, of Louisiana, 
is in no respect behind them. Their course is giving them a 
distinction worth more than a thousand titles of nobility. Their 
indignant denunciations and their lofty bearing would, if any 
thing could, shame every Northern doughface out of Washing- 
ton. Governor Jones will stand almost alone in Tennessee. He 
was the first silly pigeon to fly under the net. 

Mr. Benton says the bill will be defeated. He declares he 
does not know how, but that it will be he is certain. Such 
wrong as it meditates, he says, never does triumph. He will 
speak, but he says he shall not speak out of order nor over his 
time. He wants but an hour, he says, to destroy it before the 
people, and that hour he proposes certainly to occupy, for he 
says he will kill the bill and write its epitaph. ' ' Yes, sir, ' ' in 
his own language, " the bill will be sent to h — , sir, and its 
authors will be sent there with it, sir." Of its principal author 
he expresses the profoundest contempt. " Sir," said he, " the 
meanest man in our country is a poor white man who marries a 
woman with niggers. He is not allowed to associate with gen- 
tlemen, sir. He is hooted off the Court House Green, sir. 
We have nothing to do with him, sir. ' ' 

All the personal peculiarities of the eminent Missourian force 
themselves into expression under the excitements of the occasion. 
Some of his racy comments are even too broad to be quoted. 
But his sturdy independence and great weight of character tell 
powerfully on the right side of this contest. J. S. P. 



322 PROVOKING A STORM. [April 

A WARNING. 
[From the New York Tribune of April, 1854.] 

If the slave power, aided by a few deserters from freedom, 
intend to deliberately crowd and plunder the North as they pro- 
pose in this Nebraska bill, how long can this government go 
harmoniously on ? Does any man in his senses believe that if 
the Missouri Compromise is repealed at this session, that the next 
Congress will not contain a majority in favor of the restoration 
of the restriction upon slavery ? Ah ! gentlemen, who are you 
that doubt it ? Come out into the open day, and let us have a 
look into your faces. Do you doubt it ? Who doubts it ? 

Let the doubter cast his eye over the districts whose repre- 
sentatives dare to vote for this repeal. There are not a fourth 
part of the entire aggregate of the members from the Free States, 
at the worst, who will think of sustaining the swindle by their 
votes. But let the number be assumed at any figure you will. 
How many of them will come back on a direct issue before the 
people of approving that vote ? Count up the majorities, cipher 
out your result and declare it. "We will tell you and save you 
the trouble. Not a baker's dozen. Probably not ten. Prob- 
ably not five. No, you will have a House in favor of restoring 
the restriction. And they will come hot from the people de- 
manding that restoration. But you will not grant it. The 
Senate will certainly be opposed. Possibly a President's veto 
may be threatened. Very well, sir. Did it never occur to you 
that this government cannot get along very easily without the 
action of the House of Representatives, especially if the action 
of that House is backed by the animating spirit of a decided ma- 
jority of the people, watching these representatives and holding 
them to a rigid accountability for all their acts, and insisting that 
they shall legislate in accordance with the views of those who 
gave them their seats. 

Be assured, be assured, gentlemen disturbers of settled 
questions, gentlemen violators of sacred compacts, gentlemen 
robbers of the domain of freedom, that you are provoking a 
storm of popular excitement of which you little dream. You 
are sowing the wind and you will reap the whirlwind. All will 
be quiet when your few lines shall have gone upon the statute 



1854] GRAVE CONSEQUENCES IN THE FUTURE. 223 

book? All will be peace and acquiescence as in 1850 ? Oh ! but 
you are verdant. Douglas tells you this, doesn't he ? Pierce 
thinks it is so, doesn't he ? That consistent statesman, Caleb 
Cushing, assures you the bill will " crush out" the spirit of free- 
dom, doesn't he ? "Well, gentlemen they are first-rate authori- 
ties, and you had better believe them. But we tell you no ! 
The supposition is a gross delusion. Eely upon it, if Nebraska 
goes through, the result of the next Congressional elections in 
the North will come in a universal triumph for the restoration 
candidates. No man can stand in the North in that day of 
reckoning who plants himself on the ground of sustaining the 
repeal of the Missouri Compromise. In the storm that will then 
sweep over the Free States all such will perish. No serious ex- 
citement ? No agitation ? No condemnation of this infamous 
measure ? Are senators and representatives fools or mad that 
they should believe this ? 

We have here intimated nothing beyond the opening of the 
great drama that the repeal of the Missouri Compromise will 
bring upon the stage. These are but suggestions of the first and 
most superficial acts it will introduce. Far graver consequences 
lie behind. It inaugurates the era of a geographical division of 
political parties. It draws the line between North and South. 
It pits face to face rli3 two opposing forces of slavery and free- 
dom in the national legislature, and gives birth to the most em- 
bittered sectional strife the country has ever yet seen. For 
shame, ye Badgers and Joneses and Claytons that it should be 
so ! Where now is your nationality ? Nay, where is your 
sagacity and common- sense ? Is it for us to rebuke such men for 
initiating such an embittered sectional controversy ? Is it for us 
to depict to Southern Whig senators the evils of a geographical 
division of parties ? With what insensate haste have they 
plunged upon this issue and left their old Northern Whig allies 
in order to join a slavery raid under the inglorious lead of Mr. 
Douglas, of Illinois ! Let it never be said hereafter that this last 
fatal and final rupture between the North and South was the act 
of Northern Whigs. It is the act of the body of grave Southern 
Whig senators, uniting under the lead of third-rate northern 
politicians, having fraud upon their lips and treachery in their 
hearts, to invade the North and take freedom by the throat. 



224 LETTER FROM E. B. WASHBURNE. [May 

And they expect no serious resistance ! As well expect the 
waves not to rise when the winds blow. 



[From Hon. Elihu B. Washburne.] 

Washington, D. C. , May 8, 1854. 

Pike : This day's work has convinced me that the Nebraska bill will 
pass our House. There was no heart, no concert, no courage exhibited 
by the opponents of the bill to-day. They were constantly at cross- 
purposes. We were beaten at all points. , The Locofocos who held 
out against the bill to-day seemed completely cowed. They seemed 
willing to give all up and let things go by the board. The amount of 
treachery among the scoundrels you will see on looking over the ayes 
and noes. All talk about resisting by parliamentary tactics will turn 
out "all talk and no cider." All the Whigs, except Haven, all the 
Hards except Walbridge, and about half a dozen other Locofocos, are 
earnestly against the bill, and that is all. The other Locofocos who 
go against the bill go that way in fear of their constituents only. Just 
think of Noble of Michigan, Trout of Pennsylvania, and others going 
for the bill ! There is no salvation but the kicking up of the greatest 
row among the constituents of the traitors. Cannot something be done 
to act upon your city traitors, and upon Taylor of Owego ? I think the 
press should cry aloud and spare not. The Connecticut Locofocos 
acted strangely to-day, though they voted (all but Ingersoll) against 
going into committee. It was curious to see Bayley, of Virginia, May 
and Vanzant, of Baltimore, and Riddle, of Delaware, all great French 
spoliation bill men, vote to pass that bill over. 

I am too d mad to write any more, and the above is very inco- 
herent, I see by reading it over. Amen. E. B. Washburne. 



DEFEAT OF THE NEBRASKA CONSPIRATORS. 

[From the New York Tribune of May 13.] 

We announce with the deepest gratification that the gallant 
and heroic resistance of the minority to the Nebraska outrage, 
through the thirty -six hours' session of the House which termi- 
nated on Friday at midnight, was finally crowned with complete 
success. That body met again at twelve o'clock to-day, but the 



1854] TRIUMPH OF THE MINORITY. 225 

majority declined to renew the contest, and after a brief session of 
two hours the House adjourned till Monday. The moral effects 
of this triumph on the part of the opponents of this great iniquity 
are incalculable. 

The contest shows that wrong cannot triumph if it be ear- 
nestly resisted. We trust this strenuous conflict will awaken the 
country to the perilous condition of public affairs, and stimulate 
and encourage that indomitable minority who have achieved this 
victory to still greater efforts hereafter, if they shall be de- 
manded in order to preserve the advantage already obtained. 
That minority has tested its own force and found it at once relia- 
ble and effective. Let it retreat from no position that it has 
gained. But let it resolutely stand upon its advantages, husband 
its strength, and determinedly prepare for the future. 

The victory it has won is one which will send a thrill of joy 
through the hearts of the entireNorthern people. But it must 
not be forgotten that it will be enthusiastically received by them, 
not only as an honorable feat accomplished, but as an earnest of 
unflinching conduct in the future. 

As the true and faithful members of Congress have done 
their duty, we call upon the people to do theirs. Let the repre- 
sentatives be encouraged and sustained by their constituents 
throughout the North. Let public meetings be held, and public 
sympathy and encouragement be everywhere and in every man- 
ner promulgated. It is a crisis demanding the utmost activity 
and energy, and the people themselves have an important duty 
to perform in the emergency. 

The entire brunt of the battle should not be left to fall upon 
members of Congress. The minority is contending against men 
who are misrepresenting their constituents. Those constituents 
in every district should themselves oppose and condemn the ac- 
tion of their own representatives. The people themselves can 
utterly destroy the force of the action of the Northern traitors 
to freedom in this contest, if they but resolve to do it. It is an 
imperative duty resting upon them, the performance of which 
should need no urging. Let then every faithless member receive 
the indignant condemnation of the people he is misrepresenting. 



226 LETTERS FROM I. WASHBURN, JR. [May 

[From Hon. Israel Washburn, Jr.] 

Saturday Morning, May 13. 

Dear Pike : Alive, hearty, and indomitable. Your correspondent 
has done wrong to Haven and Giddings. They were with us from the 
beginning, and no men more firm and faithful have been in the House. 
Hunt '{inter nos) embarrassed us when he interrupted me. Bell even 
counsels a timid policy. I have labored incessantly to keep out all pro- 
jects for capitulation or compromise. For thirty-six hours we have held 
them at bay, Giddings says more bravely than he ever saw. Dean, of 
New York, is pretending to be on both sides. Are you coming on 
during the struggle ? You ought to have, a good correspondent, I think, 
at this time. In haste, 

Yours ever, I. Washburn, Jr. 

J. S. Pike, Esq. 



! 



[From Israel Washburn, Jr.] 

House of Representatives, 
Saturday, 2 p.m., May 13. 

My Dear Sir : We are at it again calling the ayes and noes on 
dilatory motions. Our men feel well this morning. Some of the 
Democrats are weak in the back, but the most of them hold out, and I 
think will Two or three Whigs are afflicted in the same way. ITpham 
is altogether too good-natured to be here. He can no more withstand 
the flatteries and soft-soaping of Southern men than you can help loving 
old Clayton. He made a fine speech against Nebraska, and the South- 
ern men have praised it, and how can he do less than let them pass their 
bill? 

Pray you admonish Northern members that such as show the white 
feather will be exposed ; they are all watched. 

Chandler is behaving better than ever I knew him. 

2.15. — We've worried them out : the House has just adjourned. 
Yours ever, I. Washburn, Jr. 

J. S. Pike, Esq. 



THE POLICY OF THE NEBRASKA LEADERS. 

[From the New York Tribune of May 14.] 

The following pleasant and suggestive article is from the 
Southern Standard, an Administration paper published at 
Charleston, South Carolina. It is a frank statement of the policy 



1854] SOUTHERN POLICY DETAILED. 227 

of the Administration upon the slavery question, which our 
readers will do well to look at by way of refreshing themselves. 
It will amply repay perusal : 

" A general rupture in Europe would force upon us the undisputed 
sway of the Gulf of Mexico and the West Indies, with all their rich and 
mighty productions. Guided by our genius and enterprise, a new world 
would rise there, as it did before under the genius of Columbus. With 
Cuba and St. Domingo, we could control the productions of the tropics, 
and with them the commerce of the world, and with that, the power of 
the world. Our true policy is to look to Brazil as the next great slave 
power, and as the government that is to direct or license the development 
of the country drained by the Amazon. Instead of courting England, we 
should look to Brazil and the West Indies. The time will come when a 
treaty of commerce and alliance with Brazil will give us the control over 
the Gulf of Mexico and its border countries, together with the islands, 
and the consequence of this will place African slavery beyond the reach of 
fanaticism at home or abroad. These two great slave powers now hold 
more undeveloped territory than any other two governments, and they 
ought to guard and strengthen their mutual interests by acting together 
in strict harmony and concert. Considering our vast resources and the 
mighty commerce that is about to expand upon the bosom of the two coun- 
tries, if we act together by treaty we can not only preserve domestic servi- 
tude, but we can defy the power of the world. With firmness and judgment 
we can open up the African slave-emigration again to people the noble region 
of the tropics. We can boldly defend this upon the most enlarged sytem of 
philanthropy. It is far better for the wild races of Africa themselves. Look 
at the 3,000,000 in the United States who have had the blessings, not only 
of civilization but of Christianity. Can any man pretend to say that they 
would have been better off in the barbarian state of their native wilder- 
ness ; and has not the attempt to suppress, by force, this emigration in- 
creased the horrors of the ' middle passage ' tenfold ? The good old Las 
Casas, in 1519, was the first to advise Spain to import Africans to her 
colonies, as a substitute for the poor Indians, who, from their peculiar 
nature, were totally unsuited to bear the labors of slavery. Experience 
has shown that his scheme was founded in wise and Christian philan- 
thropy. Millions of the black men, yet unborn, will rise up to bless his 
benevolent memory. The time is coming when we will boldly defend this 
emigration before the world. The hypocritical cant and whining morality 
of the latter-day saints will die away before the majesty of commerce and 
the power of those vast productions which are to spring from the cultiva- 
tion and full development of the mighty tropical regions in our own hemi- 
sphere. If it be mercy to give the grain-growing sections of America to 
the poor and hungry of Europe, why not open up the tropics to the poor 
African ? The one region is as eminently suited to them as the other is to 
the white race. There is as much philanthropy in the one as in the other. 



228 SUBSTANCE OF THE PLAN. [May 

We have been too long governed by psalm-singing schoolmasters from the 
North. It is time to think for ourselves. The folly commenced in our 
own government uniting with Great Britain to declare slave importation 
piracy. Piracy is a crime on the high seas, arising under the law of na- 
tions, and it is as well defined by those laws as murder is at common law. 
And for two nations to attempt to make that piracy which is not so under 
the law of nations is an absurdity. You might as well declare it burglary, 
or arson, or any thing else. And we have ever since, by a joint fleet with 
Great Britain on the coast of Africa, been struggling to enforce this mis- 
erable blunder. The time will come that all the islands and regions suited 
to African slavery, between us and Brazil, will fall under the control of 
these two slave powers, in some shape or other, either by treaty or actual 
possession of the one government or the other. And the statesman who 
closes his eyes to these results, has but a very small view of the great 
questions and interests that are looming up in the future. In a few years 
there will be no investment for the two hundred millions, in the annual 
increase of gold on a large scale, so profitable and so necessary, as the 
development and cultivation of the tropical regions now slumbering in 
rank and wild luxuriance. If the slaveholding race in these States are- 
but true to themselves, they have a great destiny before them." 

The propositions being set forth are, in brief : 

1. To take Cuba. 

2. To conquer St. Domingo and reduce its inhabitants to sla- 
very. 

3. To unite with Brazil and perform the same conquering 
and enslaving process on all the other West India islands. 

4. To then enter into an alliance with Brazil for the estab- 
lishment and fortification of slavery throughout South and North 
America. 

5. For this object to develop the Amazon country and take 
possession of the Gulf of Mexico and all the adjacent tropical 
regions. 

6. To reopen the African slave-trade. 

7. To boldly defend this scheme upon the " most enlarged 
system of philanthropy. ' ' 

Such is the programme of the future proceedings under the 
new Nebraska dispensation. We trust the reader has carefully 
perused it, as stated by our Southern contemporary in the above 
extract. It is seldom he will find more of what is called " let- 
ting the cat out of the bag" in the same compass. Let him not 
turn away doubting or distrusting the correctness of this repre- 



1854] LETTER FROM LEWIS D. CAMPBELL. 229 

sentation in regard to the designs of the Nebraska dynasty. He 
may depend upon it that what is here shadowed forth is no 
dream and no vagary. It is a faithful picture of what is the 
fixed and determinate policy of the Nebraska leaders. The con- 
ception of this future, we happen to know, is distinct and vivid 
among the champions of the new dispensation, and they are 
firmly bent upon its regular and systematic accomplishment. 
The Nebraska bill is but the first, and, as it has been heretofore 
regarded, easy step in this comprehensive plan of Africanizing the 
whole of the American hemisphere, and establishing slaver- 
upon what its advocates regard as an impregnable basis. 

Does any moderate, conservative Northern man doubt the 
policy of offering a little gentle resistance to this brilliant system 
of measures by way of calling the yeas and nays a few extra 
times on Nebraska ? Perhaps such a very peaceable gentleman 
as Mr. Gerritt Smith may hang fire at the proposition ; but is 
there any other Northern man, whose head and pluck are good 
and sound, who can retire before the inconceivable pusillanimity 
of a suggestion that such a course is unwise ? We presume not. 
We do not know for a certainty that Mr. Smith occupies the 
position we assign to him. If he does, all we can say is, that he 
had better resign his seat at the earliest possible moment, and 
let his constituents elect somebody in his place who will do his 
duty among sinners and not go for applying millennium tactics 
in a body like the House of Representatives at Washington. 



[From Hon. Lewis D. Campbell.] 

Washington, Sunday, May 14, 1854. 
Dear Sir : Worn out and wearied as I am, I write to say that I 
received and read with pleasure your dispatch and notes. We con- 
quered, temporarily at least. We had a hard fight of it, and I may say 
that my position was unpleasant. The Nebraskaites attempted to bully 
me from the start. At times some of our friends, growing weary, 
were disposed to make terms. I set my heel down firmly upon the posi- 
tion that we should yield to nothing but an unconditional adjournment. 
Firmness won the point, and even Edmondson's effort to whip me has 
not hurt me a jot. I find I have survived all that. Let me say that 
whilst I have stood up for the rights of the people of my State and 



230 A REVOLUTION IN PROGRESS. [May 

district amidst revolvers and bowie-knives, they seem quite passive. 
Can't you stir them up ? Their resolves of approbation would not add 
to my ardor ; but they might give courage to weak-kneed colleagues 
who may flinch at midnight in a future struggle, as they did in the last 
one. In haste, 

Truly yours, L. D. Campbell. 

J. S. Pike, Esq., New York. 



[From the New York Tribune of May 18.] 

" We are in the midst of a revolution," said Mr. Clay on a 
memorable occasion. We are in the midst of a revolution, is our 
response to the proceedings at Washington on the Nebraska bill. 
The attempted passage of this measure is the first great effort of 
slavery to take American freedom directly by the throat. 
Hitherto it has but asked to be allowed to grow and expand side 
by side with that freedom, until now, at what is believed a 
favorable moment, it springs from its lair and clutches at the life 
of its political associate in the government. It engages in a 
coup oVetat, and by the aid of Northern traitors to liberty at- 
tempts the most intolerable usurpation. 

Should success attend the movement, it is tantamount to a civil 
revolution and an open declaration of war between freedom and 
slavery on the North American continent, to be ceaselessly 
waged till one or the other party finally and absolutely triumphs. 

If Nebraska passes, the two parties must immediately marshal 
themselves in hostile array. The North will go on as it has 
begun, to oppose every step toward making the North-west pas- 
ture ground for African slavery. It will oppose the introduction 
of slavery into Nebraska and Kansas as much after the passage 
of the bill as before, and should it gain foothold there, it will 
make open and direct war upon the institution within their limits 
now and henceforth. It will fight against the admission into the 
Union of either as a Slave State, and in doing this it will neces- 
sarily be compelled in self-defence to carry the war into Africa, 
and will fight against the admission of new Slave States from 
any quarter whatever. Soundness upon this question will be 
made a test in the election of every Northern representative. 
The popular branch of the government must be speedily puri- 



1854] MURMURS OF A COMING STORM. 231 

fied, and no man elected thereto from the North who is not 
firmly, committed against the admission of more Slave States. 
A President must be elected by the Free States who will cor- 
dially support and earnestly respond to these views. There will 
be no other course but this open to the Free States, excepting 
one of abject, slavish submission to the iron rod of the Southern 
slave-drivers and the more despicable domination of Northern 
flunkeyism. The passage of the Nebraska bill will arouse and 
consolidate the most gigantic, determined, and overwhelming 
party for freedom that the world ever saw. We may already 
see in the future its gathering groups on every hillside, in every 
valley, and on every prairie in the Free States. We hear the 
deep and ominous murmur of the earnest voices of its myriad 
slowly-moving masses. We behold in their faces the serious 
and unalterable determination of their purposes in behalf of 
freedom. We see the gigantic array gradually approach, closing 
its thick ranks, and moving onward with a force that no merely 
human power or human institution can resist. It sweeps along 
with the force of the tempest and the tornado. The spirit of 
liberty animates, the spirit of progress impels, and a spirit of § 
solemn religious duty inspires and leavens the whole mass. This 
invincible army bears aloft the motto, " God with us !" Its 
immediate duties are plain. We have indicated them in the 
gross. Details will adjust themselves. What ulterior duties 
may be in store for this great party of Liberty time only can dis- 
close. The decisive events of history come but slowly. They 
have their source, as the great rivers have theirs, in the little rills 
that trickle in the hidden recesses of the plain and the mountain. 
But we cannot hide from our vision the vital fact that this 
party, once aroused and consolidated on a platform sufficiently 
wide and substantial to afford a sure basis for its operation, such 
as the passage of the Nebraska-Kansas bill will furnish, will not 
hesitate in its course, or fail in its duties, however radical and 
sweeping those duties may become in the natural progress of 
events. 

For the mole-eyed squad of little Northern men at Washing- 
ton who are accidentally the controlling political force of the 
government at this junction of public affairs, lighting the 
torches of civil discord and vainly dreaming that no conflagration 



232 LET THE CONFLICT COME. [May 

is to ensue — we have but pity for their blindness and fatuity. 
They are under the lead of men of gross and grovelling pur- 
poses, base instincts, and narrow vision. They are but blind 
followers of the blind. 

To avert the throes and convulsions which must inevitably 
follow this infamous act, we have labored and shall labor, and as 
a last resort to this end, if there shall prove to be a majority of 
the House in favor of the final consummation of this scheme, 
we advocate the determined resistance of the minority to that 
consummation. This bold and astounding assault upon the 
cause of liberty and of progress should be met by Northern rep- 
resentatives in Congress in the spirit with which freedom in its 
most lofty mood has ever resisted oppression. It is a solemn 
duty which devolves upon them, without agency of theirs, to 
bring about the crisis that enjoins their action. We know that 
it is easier to shirk it than to discharge it. But in so clear a 
case it were culpable to refuse to engage in the only procedure 
which gives any hope of arresting the infamous measure. For 
whatever results shall follow such a course we cheerfully court 
our share of the responsibility. Whatever that result shall be, 
we unhesitatingly say, Let it come. There are greater evils 
than a conflict between two parties in the legislative branch of 
the government — greater evils than temporarily blocking the 
wheels of public affairs, or than producing a shock which shall 
precipitately send the members of Congress home to their consti- 
tuents. And clearly among them, in our estimation, are the 
fatal and far-reaching consequences of the passage of the Ne- 
braska bill. We urge, therefore, unbending determination on 
the part of the Northern members hostile to this intolerable 
outrage, and demand of them in behalf of peace, in behalf of 
freedom, in behalf of justice and humanity, resistance to the 
last. In pursuing the course we indicate, th6 friends of free- 
dom in the House will be sustained by the press and by the 
people, and, as we believe, in whatever form support shall be 
demanded. We devoutly urge them to be faithful to their trust 
in this great emergency, and to confidently rely upon a popular 
sympathy that will treasure their deeds as the acts of martyrs. 
Such a course will secure the support of men who will hold their 
lives cheap in the maintenance of the righteous cause which that 
minority is called to defend. 



1854] LETTER FROM E. B. WASHBURNE. 233 

[From Hon. E. B. Washburne.] 

Wednesday Night, May 24. 

Dear Pike : I hardly dare write you for fear I shall see my letter 
" in the papers." For God's sake never put any thing I write you in 
the paper in the shape of a letter. There are a thousand things that 
you ought to have been written about, but I could not do it. Your 
telegraphic correspondent is devoted to " John Wheeler" (a good fellow, 
by the way), and that is about all. Why did you not denounce the 
traitors who went off on the suspension of the rules ? In giving the 
names in the paper to-day you omit . . . name (apparently by 
design), one of the movers of the treason. I want to see whether 
you correct the record, or whether you let him escape. That is all. 
I have nothing to say of your sneers at the minority, who died in the 
last ditch, and who were only defeated by breaking over and riding 
down all rules. 

In looking over your list of the men who voted to suspend the rules, 
I see you have made a further mistake. Merriam, of New Hampshire, 
voted to suspend, but Oliver, of New York, voted against. You ought 
to correct that list. 

After all, my only hope is the Tribune. It is the terror of all the 

traitorous scoundrels here. It should now be devoted to the exposure 

of this ungodly infamy. The rascals stand about the hotels trembling 

when the neswboys come in with the Tribune. They are all taken in a 

-jiffy." 

Yours in haste, E. B. W ashburne. 



[From Editor National Era.} 

Washington, D.C., May 21, 1854. 
My Dear Friend : Party names and prejudices are the cords that 
bind the Samson of the North. All day yesterday our friends in Con- 
gress were without organization. They could not forget they were 
Whigs ; they were Democrats. Preston King, and myself worked 
hard for a common caucus, and at last, just as the House adjourned, it 
was agreed by leading men on both sides — Dean, Banks, and James 
Campbell, Washburn, Malley, and Chandler — to meet together in a 
common caucus at eight o'clock in the evening. Mr. Upham, who gave 
me an account of the meeting, says it was well attended from both 
parties. The caucus will meet again Monday morning. There is now 
a fair prospect of a good organization, mutual forbearance, and a re- 
spectable fight. 



2U LETTERS— DR. BAILEY, L. D. CAMPBELL. [May 

But the bill will pass. Don't say so — prepare for it. What I wish 
to call your attention to is this : Had the opponents in Congress of the 
legislation of 1850 stood together and united together in an address to 
the people of the United States, showing how the various measures 
had been carried, how the North had been cheated, pointed out the 
real culprits, and called for such action as the crisis demanded, there 
would have been no lull, no acquiescence, no Baltimore convention, no 
finality resolves, no such Congress as now afflicts us. Shall we not 
learn ? Pass this infernal Nebraska bill, and if its opponents in Con- 
gress remain silent, their constituents will submit and go to sleep. 

There will be need of an address, so soon as the bill shall have 
passed, from its opponents in Congress, without distinction of party, 
solemnly protesting against it, exposing its true nature and design, the 
fraudulent devices by which it has been carried, fastening the respon- 
sibility upon the actors in it, and beseeching the people, if they do not 
intend to become abject slaves, to rise in their might and redress the 
insult and injury thus inflicted on them. Such an address, written in 
the proper spirit, would shake the whole North and West, and lay the 
foundation of a real party of Freedom. Will you call for it ? Take 
the hint for what it is worth. 

As ever, yours, G. Bailey. 



[From Hon. Lewis D. Campbell.] 

House op Representatives, [ 
Washington, May 24, 1854. \ 

Dear Sir : You have heard all about the fraud and villainy which 
struck down our gallant band of a round hundred. No tactics, no strug- 
gle, could make one hundred count as much as one hundred and thir- 
teen ! I think we did well. We make a glorious record to put before 
the people. 

The great danger now is that the North, absorbed in money-making, 
will swoon back, as in past controversies, into acquiescence. If it does, 
I shall cast my destiny into the South. If Northern servility is to 
become a " fixed fact," I shall endeavor to rid my name and posterity 
of the odium which history will record against us. 

Cullom and I may make a flying visit to your city next week whilst 
our hall is being purified. God knows it is needed ; but purification 
through the ballot-box would be far better than new matting. 

Very truly yours, etc., L. D. Campbell. 

J. S. Pike, Esq., New York. 



1854] THE REVOLUTION ACCOMPLISHED. 235 

THE REVOLUTION ACCOMPLISHED. 
[From the Mw York Tribune of May 24, 1854.] 

The revolution is accomplished and slavery is King ! — How 
long shall this monarch reign ? This is now the question for the 
Northern people to answer. Their representatives have crowned 
the new potentate and the people alone can depose him. If we 
were a few steps further advanced in the drama of reaction now 
going forward upon the great theatre of public affairs on this 
continent, he could only be hurled from his seat through a bloody 
contest. Happily we are not yet brought to that pass, and votes 
will serve instead of bayonets. It is for the people now to say 
whether they will submit to the new dynasty or rebel and re- 
cover what has been perfidiously betrayed by their representa- 
tives into the hands of the enemy. It is for them to say 
whether they will be free men still or the serfs of a slaveholding 
aristocracy — to say whether the masters of the black race in the 
South shall be the masters of the white race in the North. And 
it is for the Democratic party in the North to say whether it will 
consent to be put under Southern Whig leaders, who in this 
contest between freedom and slavery have headed the invaders' 
column on the soil of freedom and been foremost to enthrone the 
great Usurper. Southern Whigs no less than Northern traitors 
have accomplished this work. Without Southern Whigs the 
Nebraska, villainy could not have triumphed. These men, tired 
of a minority, now essay to lead and ride the masses of the 
Northern Democracy. The question is, whether these Demo- 
cratic masses of the North are ready for their new masters. Let 
us recal a few of the names of the most prominent that it may 
be seen who they are. The country will recognize those we 
name as old leaders of the Whig party of the South during the 
last ten years. Here they are : John M. Clayton, of Delaware ; 
George E. Badger, of North Carolina ; James C. Jones, of Ten- 
nessee ; James A. Pearce, of Maryland ; the notorious firm of 
Toombs and Stephens, of Georgia ; and Wm. C. Dawson, of 
the same State. To these could be added a dozen of lesser note. 
Men of the Democratic party of the North ! behold your new 
leaders and would-be masters. We have acted with these men 
while they remained true to duty and to principle. We repudi- 
ate them and their acts and leave them to their fate now that 



236 NORTHERN TRAITORS. [May 

they have deserted both. It is at this juncture that Northern 
traitors to Democracy, who have hitherto been among its leaders, 
claim the power to transfer the Northern Democracy over to the 
support of these men and their new confederates in the great 
slavery dynasty just installed at Washington by the passage of 
the Nebraska bill. 

In view of the great issues before us, we throw all party 
considerations to the winds. Our appeal is to che people of the 
North, without distinction of party. In the great struggle now 
commencing to resist the surrender of this Union and Govern- 
ment to the slaveholders, we wish to know no party names or di- 
visions. "We simply desire to see enlisted under one banner all 
who are opposed to the invasion of the free territory of the 
North by the slaveholders of the South ; of all who wish to see 
Liberty and not Slavery the great interest in the State. We 
only ask who is ready to league together to dethrone the new 
monarch. Freedom has been betrayed and sacrificed. Its gates 
have been thrown open by foul treachery, the invader has 
entered and revels in his spoils. Who will unite to expel him ? 
A territory which one short year ago was unanimously considered 
by all, North and South, as sacredly secured by irrepealable law 
to freedom forever, has been foully betrayed by traitor hearts 
and traitor voices, and surrendered to slavery. Conspiracy has 
done its worst. Treason has done its worst. Who comes to the 
rescue ? 

In respect to the Northern traitors who have co-operated in 
this deed, language fails to express our detestation of their in- 
famous conduct. They deserve no quarter at the hand of the 
North. They are no better than mutineers and pirates who have 
risen and confiscated the precious cargo it was their duty to pre- 
serve and convey to its destined haven. They are enemies to 
their country and enemies to their race. As Christians they 
have foresworn the precepts and trod under foot the doctrines in 
culcated by the founders of Christianity. As men, they have 
ruthlessly trampled upon the rights of their fellow- men and 
forged chains and fetters for the enslavement of millions of their 
kind. On their return to their constituents they should be met 
as persons unfit for association with freemen. They should be 
vomited forth from the Free States as Kentucky vomited out its 



1854] LETTER FROM DR. BAILEY. 237 

last great culprit. They are political Matt. Wards, every one. 
The public indignation should follow to its closest retreats and 
roast and consume such matchless criminality as theirs. 

But while freedom is beaten in this last contest it may be that 
it is for the best. Perhaps some such gigantic outrage upon the 
living sentiment of the North as the repeal of the Missouri Com- 
promise was necessary to arouse and consolidate the hosts of 
freedom in the Free States. As an earthquake in the material 
world, or some overwhelming sorrow in social life deepens the 
sentiment of common brotherhood, and sinks and destroys for 
the time all petty hostilities between man and man, so may this 
enormity fall upon the hearts of all the lovers of liberty and sub- 
due and unite them in a common cause and stimulate them to 
unity of effort, regardless of past differences, while they retrieve 
the losses freedom has sustained in the late conflict. That such 
may be its effect is our fervent desire and our most warmly 
cherished hope. 



[From Dr. Bailey, Editor National Era.] 

Washington, D. C, May 30, 1854. 
Dear Pike : Have not yet received your plan, but shall examine 
it with much interest. Preston King lias been here. He is anxious for 
a general break-up of old organizations — would vote for anybody for 
President on a distinct anti-slavery issue — whether Seward, Benton, 
Hale, Houston, or anybody else. He suggested a ticket — Benton for 
President, Seward for Vice-President, with the understanding that 
Seward should come in in 1860 as President. But how to bring it 
about is the puzzle. He wants no more National Conventions. Truman 
Smith and Wade go for a Party of Freedom — want nothing more of the 
old organizations. Seward hangs fire. The Albany Evening Journal of 
Friday evening, 26th, speaks his sentiments. God help us if , as prelim- 
inary to a union of the North we have all to admit that the Whig party 
is the party of freedom ! Can't they see the folly of pressing this ? 
The Whig party has been a noble party in its day, in many respects ; 
and its Northern section, on the whole, has been less adverse in its 
action to freedom ; but you know, we all know, it was not organized 
with any view to anti-slavery issues ; that as a national party it has never 
been sufficient for the protection of freedom ; that the great question now 
upon us must be met by a different kind of organization, by new tactics, 



238 DEATH OF GOVERNOR DAVIS. [June 

by new ideas. Do say a word to the Journal. See how gloriously 
they have struck out in Ohio — the old Cincinnati Gazette, the central 
organ of Whiggery, the State Journal and the Cleveland Herald, once 
Silvery Grey, all giving up the name and organization of Whig, and 
calling for a Union Convention of the Democracy of Freedom. Such a 
movement at once absorbs all the independent Democrats and all the 
liberal old line Democrats in the State. Can't you expand the Journal ? 
At all events, hail and sustain the Ohio movement. It is the beginning. 

You see I write freely to you, and often. We may as well, work- 
ing in the same cause, for the same ends, and pretty much according to 
the same ideas, keep up a good understanding with each other. 

By the way, do not let Mace, Edgerton, Banker, Dean, Wentworth, 
Morrison, Kittredge, and Hughes be run down because of their vote on 
the 15th to suspend the rules. They acted in good faith, and at no 
time during the struggle committed any other act having even a ques- 
tionable aspect. Do not let us throw off those of the Democratic party 
that ought to be with us. Good-by. 

As ever, G. Bailey. 



GOVERNOR DAVIS. 
[From the New York Tribune of June 1.] 

The death of Governor Davis, of Massachusetts is an event 
which we cannot pass over in silence. In addition to the brief 
biographical sketch of his life which we published yesterday, we 
are impelled to testify our respect for the eminent talents and 
elevated character of that distinguished and most worthy man. 
As Governor of his native State, and as one of her representa- 
tives in Congress, he had no small share in establishing for her 
the distinction of the "model Commonwealth." In one or the 
other of these capacities he served his State for twenty-four years. 
And during the whole of that long period, though it was illus- 
trated by the career of some of the greatest men that Massa- 
chusetts has produced — prolific though she has been in men of 
eminence — no one had a more decided hold upon popular affec- 
tion and esteem than John Davis. 

Unlike many public men of note in Massachusetts annals, 
Governor Davis never especially devoted himself to the cultiva- 
tion of letters. It was no part of his ambition to read either 



1.S54] GOVERNOR DAVIS'S HIGH CHARACTER. 239 

Latin or Greek for the purpose of quoting it. He was a man of 
earnest thought, of comprehensive scope of mind, of steady and 
unerring judgment, of inflexible integrity, and unswerving deci- 
sion of character. He was rather distinguished as a man of large 
general powers 'than as an eminent writer or brilliant talker. 
Yet for clearness of statement, robust sense, and powerful logic 
his speeches will bear a favorable comparison with any delivered 
in Congress during the long term of his public service. His 
tariff speeches, especially in their facts, figures, and logic are 
models of instructive and invulnerable argumentation. And to 
his speeches in Congress was accorded always this emphatic testi- 
monial : They were always attentively listened to, and their 
positions seldom or never assailed. Never speaking for the sake 
of speaking, but always because he had something to say which 
demanded utterance and challenged regard, he uniformly com- 
manded the strict attention of his auditors. 

But it is as an honest, independent, fearless public man that 
we chiefly desire to speak of Governor Davis and to bear our em- 
phatic testimony to his sterling worth. Cool, cautious, conser- 
vative in his general tone of mind, perhaps he failed at times to 
win the quick approval of the ardent and enthusiastic. But if 
he was sometimes slow to move, when he did move he always 
moved in the right direction. He never was cajoled or seduced 
or corrupted into any crooked ways. His path was broad and 
straightforward, and always illumined by the light of a manly 
intellect and unquestioned honesty of purpose. No man had 
clearer views in all public emergencies, and no man ever more 
faithfully followed his convictions. Conciliatory in temper, 
moderate and circumspect in action, occasions yet arose in his 
public career when upon important questions he was found 
standing and voting alone and in opposition to the most cher- 
ished relations. In the great contest of 1850, in the prelim- 
inary skirmishes of the two years which led to it, and in all the 
direct and incidental conflicts that grew out of it, John Davis 
was the fearless and unflinching friend and leader in the cause of 
freedom. He was one of the earliest and most resolute of the 
supporters of General Taylor's policy on the territorial ques- 
tion, and one of the most conspicuous and inflexible opponents 
of the Foote "adjustments," known as the Compromises of 



240 GOVERNOR DAVIS AS A LEGISLATOR. [June 

1850. Governor Davis was one of the few eminent men in Con- 
gress who could never be alarmed or shaken by the periodical 
threats of secession and dissolution which have at various times 
disfigured the annals of our political history. Sober and measured 
as he always was in his public conduct and in his comments upon 
public affairs, he yet never hesitated to deride and contemn the 
bugbear apprehensions which some of our distinguished men 
were wont to habitually express respecting the great fragility of 
this Union, and the great necessity of compromising to save it. 
A ' ' crisis, ' ' such as could be got up by little fellows like Foote, 
or the more formidable movements of Calhoun and McDuffie, 
while it occasioned grave concern on the part of statesmen of 
timid nerves, or of those whose interests were promoted by mag- 
nifying it, never disturbed the equanimity of John Davis. He 
was one of the men who never believed in the froth and rhodo- 
montade of the South about disunion ; and was always ready to 
say, Let the trial come. His language on all such occasions was, 
if we have a government, let us know it, and if we have not, let 
us know it. It was by this steadiness and stability of character 
that he always exercised a powerful influence in Congress, never 
measured and seldom recognized in public, because of its being 
unseen, but which was none the less effective on that account. 
The future biographer of Governor Davis will do him injustice 
if he fails to hold him up as a man eminently fitted for emer- 
gencies ; as a man of clear judgment, resolute purpose, ready to 
act without apprehension, without equivocation, and without 
compromising. In these qualities he occupies a rank inferior to 
none of his contemporaries, while his career in these respects affords 
a striking contrast to more than one of Massachusetts 's most dis- 
tinguished representatives in the Senate. If that State would 
always send to Congress men made after the model of " honest 
John Davis," the title of " model Commonwealth" would as 
well apply to her political representation at "Washington, as it 
now applies to her industrial development and her social status. 



1854] THE FUGITIVE BURNS. 241 

SLAVE-CATCHEKS' TKIUMPH. 
[From the New York Tribune of J une 3.] 

The fugitive Burns is delivered into slavery. A man as 
much entitled to his freedom as any other man on the soil of 
Massachusetts has been seized in that State by other men, 
manacled, and consigned to hopeless bondage. The people 
of that great Commonwealth, containing a million of in- 
habitants, every one of them knowing the act to be a gross and 
unpardonable exercise of tyrannical power, a criminal outrage 
upon the inalienable rights of man, have suffered it to be done 
without interposing force to prevent it. That there was opposi- 
tion to the act, is, however, seen in the means employed for its 
consummation. Burns was not torn from the soil of freedom 
and consigned to slavery by any ordinary methods of imprisoning 
malefactors. He was not taken by a constable or a sheriff, or 
even a whole police force of a great city. All these were in- 
sufficient. It took all the police of Boston, three companies of 
United States troops, one company of cavalry and an entire bat- 
talion of militia, together with several pieces of artillery, to 
secure the capture of this citizen and remand him to slavery. It 
is said that this was an experimental case of slave-catching, got 
up especially for the purpose of showing how readily the North 
would acquiesce in the Nebraska bill, and succumb to the aggres- 
sions of the slave power. We trust the managers of the per- 
formance are satisfied. What do they think of the prospect of 
performing the same feat over again ? 

This cowardly capture of an innocent man, and consigning him 
to the horrors of a servile bondage necessarily provokes some 
reflections. We desire to ask the principals in the affair, the 
leading Nebraska conspirators, and the Executive Government 
at Washington, what was the use of the ostentatious display of 
artillery charged with grape-shot that were planted in Court- 
square on the occasion ? Do they not know that the discharge of 
that cannon upon the Boston multitude there assembled would 
have been the signal for fifty thousand men of Massachusetts to 
fly to arms ? Do they not know that they did not dare dis- 
charge that artillery upon the friends of freedom in that com- 
monwealth ? Why, then, did they indulge in this piece of in- 
timidation ? Was it for the luxury of an unmeaning taunt ? 



242 DANGER OF NORTHERN OUTBREAK. [June 

It may be that they cannot see that all through this Burns trial 
the public peace has been slumbering upon the edge of a volcano. 
If they cannot, perhaps they had better devote themselves to a 
closer scrutiny of the existing state of the popular pulse. 

There has been the most imminent danger of a violent and 
armed outbreak during this late tragedy. And suppose it had 
taken place ? Who would have quelled it ? Who would have 
restored the public peace when once broken ? Burns has been 
taken away, but let us tell the slave power that nothing has been 
accomplished by that capture but to deepen the resolution that 
slaves shall not be taken on the soil of the Free States. Noth- 
ing has been accomplished by it but to arouse the Northern 
mind to a determination to resistance to such scenes in the future. 
This time men have been unarmed. Another time it may be 
otherwise. We are but at the beginning of the resistance to the 
arrogant domination of the slave power. Things are but in the 
bud, in the gristle. Nothing has been done in this case but to 
declare against the proceeding. Not an arrangement to rescue 
the fugitive has been made. Nothing which savored of earnest 
resistance has been attempted. But it will not be so always. 
Some such event as a forcible rescue will yet take place, and 
when that takes place in Massachusetts, the fugitive will not be 
sent to Canada. He will be held upon her soil, and a note of 
defiance sounded to let them come and take him who dare. 

The future is big with events such as these unless something 
is done to allay the public excitement produced by the proceed- 
f ings of the slave power, backed by our rulers. The fugitive slave 
law, as it now stands, can no longer be enforced without jeopardiz- 
ing the public tranquillity to an alarming extent. We again call 
upon Congress to give their earnest and immediate attention to 
this grave subject. If there can be no repeal of the law at this 
session, which we think is quite certain, let us at least have the 
trial by jury. A modification of this sort is absolutely demanded 
unless the country is to be precipitated upon insurrection, and 
perchance civil war. 



1854] TAUNTS OF THE SOUTH. 243 

WHAT MAY BE EXPECTED. 
[From the 2Tew Tori: Tribune of June 3.] 

Not among the least rankling of the embittered and resentful 
feelings which are swelling the public heart of the North at this 
moment, are those growing out of the taunts of the South that 
the Northern people are cowards and poltroons. All through 
the late contest the want of spirit and courage to resist the aggres- 
sions of slavery has been assumed and taken for granted by the 
Southern contrivers and supporters of the Nebraska business and 
of their servile Northern confederates. This has been the basis 
of the whole Nebraska movement and of the conduct of all the 
Northern traitors from Pierce and Douglas down to the lowest 
tier of office-mongering patriots who have embarked with them 
in their crusade upon freedom and the North. 

The North will submit, the North will yield, the North will 
acquiesce, the North will descend to the lowest level of a craven 
humiliation. If they had not believed this doctrine, they would 
not have dared to commit the crime they have committed. It is 
bad enough to be injared, but to be insulted into the bargain is 
trying to the patience. The most mean-spirted wretch in the 
North (and God knows there are enough of them, as the record 
of the House and Senate vote in another column shows) hates to 
be twitted of poltroonery, and the man who is not conscious of 
self-degradation feels roused to resent such an imputation. 
Thousands and tens of thousands are now stung to the quick by 
it, and the fruits of the insulting reproach will be very clearly 
manifest at no remote day. "We are not sure that some of them 
are not now budding in Massachusetts. The Northern people 
are not a duelling nor a bowie-knife people, and are slow to 
move to earnest strife. But it is quite evident that this is a les- 
son that the Northern doughfaces in Congress, who have bartered 
away freedom's vast possessions in the North-west, as well as the 
present generation of slave-drivers, have yet to be taught. We 
entertain a pretty strong as well as growing conviction that they 
will be fully instructed on this subject within the next year or 
two. We discern some signs of the times that evidently point to 
this result. The friends of Nebraska are very rampant and very 
jubilant about this time, carrying their Fugitive Slave Law at 
the cannon's mouth, and with their hundred discharges of cannon 



244 THE FREE STATES DETERMINED. [June 

on Capitol Hill, and their similar demonstration in the Park and 
elsewhere. But neither these nor the predictions of the slavery- 
organs, North and South, that all is to be quiet submission in the 
Free States to what has been done and is to be done by the 
existing traitor Congress, shakes our faith in the future. We al- 
ready feel the ground swell beneath us, and we see the distant 
clouds gathering in the sky, which betoken the storm which 
is to wreck these fond expectations and overwhelm those faith- 
less men who have betrayed the North on a wild and stormy sea 
of political commotion. Of the whole crew who have embarked 
on this Nebraska voyage in Congress we do not believe that 
one in ten will ever come safe to land. They will all find their 
final resting-place beneath a broad ocean of ignominy. Others 
may indorse the slanderous imputation of the slave-drivers and 
doughfaces that the North is without spirit and without man- 
hood ; we do not. Others may join the shout of contemptuous 
triumph in view of the late victory over freedom in Congress ; 
we do not. "With all the shortcomings of the past in full re- 
membrance, we vindicate the people of the Free States from the 
aspersion of abject pusillanimity involved in the assertion that 
the North will submit to surrender Kansas and Nebraska to 
slavery, or indorse the conduct of the traitors who have betrayed 
liberty. We dare deny the allegation and fearlessly appeal to 
the future for our justification. We dare predict that in the 
coming contest the domination of the slave-holders will be indig- 
nantly spurned, and the doughfaces be driven out of the posts 
they have dishonored and disgraced. As to the threat already 
put forth by the feeble stipendary of the Administration — the 
Washington Union — and the organs of slavery elsewhere, that 
the Slave States will not tolerate Northern opposition to their 
schemes, and will secede if the North does not submit this time 
as hitherto, we shall condescend to make no reply. If the Slave 
States propose to go out of the Union for this reason, we advise 
them to make ready. If they propose to secede in the event of 
the North's demanding and obtaining the exclusion of slavery 
from Kansas and Nebraska, they had better lose no time in pre- 
paring to go. If these be good reasons for their exodus, they 
shall not stay for the want of them. And if they are not, they 
shall have better ones. We tell the Southern invaders that they 



1854] BOSTON COMMENTS ON BURNS. 245 

have gone one step too far this time. As for their Northern 
allies, whether in high station or in low, they shall fall and be 
crushed beneath their load of guilt without the satisfaction of 
seeing their perfidy successful. The people they have outraged 
and betrayed will bring them to the bar, and they shall swing 
high on the gallows of offended justice, the conspicuous objects 
of universal scorn and execration. 



THE BOSTON SLAVE CASE. 
[From the New York Tribune of June 5.] 

The Massachusetts papers of Saturday come to us loaded 
down with details of the Burns case and comments thereon. We 
publish a few of the comments of the more moderate of the Bos- 
ton press. 

It is difficult to conceive of a more general and intense ex- 
citement than this case has produced throughout Massachusetts. 
The whole State seems to be on fire with it. We learn from 
private sources that the depth and earnestness of feeling beggars 
description, and that the burning language of the newspapers 
even fails to give any adequate idea of the real state of things 
in that Commonwealth. There can be no doubt that the con- 
dition of the public mind in the North demands the serious atten- 
tion of Congress and the government. The public peace is as 
yet unbroken. But that it is so is but the result of a happy 
accident. If the order to fire on that Boston multitude, which 
was given by a cowardly and excited officer, had not opportunely 
been arrested in the very act of execution, it is difficult to tell 
what lamentable results might not have ensued. If the pent-up 
fires that burned in the breasts of that immense concourse of ex- 
cited people had once found vent in an outbreak, every vestige 
of authority engaged in escorting the victim to his doom would 
have been swept away in an instant. The people would have 
swarmed over the spot and executed a vengeance swift and terri- 
ble upon all concerned. That slave-catching is not to-day at an 
end in Massachusetts, and extinguished by a dreadful tragedy, 
we say then, is but the result of the merest accident. The circum- 
stance we have alluded to is one. How many others may have 



24G LETTER FROM SENATOR WADE. [June 

contributed to that end we know not. But this we know that 
it was also but an accident that no rencounter took place between 
the United States authorities and the people, during the line of 
march through State Street and down Long Wharf. The whole 
inarch was but a long combustible train that a single spark might 
have ignited. That no collisions resulted that might have brought 
on an accidental conflict (for no serious attack was meditated) is 
only a happy escape. It can be reckoned nothing else. Good 
fortune in this respect waited upon the rendition of Anthony 
Burns. 

But we wish to ask whether it could be predicated of just 
such another case, supposing the designs of the multitude to be 
not a whit more serious than they were in this ? Is it a safe 
experiment to try over again, going even on the supposition that 
the public feeling is not going to become yet more intensified, 
if possible, and its determinations more violent and dangerous ? 

"We submit the question to Congress and to the Executive 
Government at Washington. And we desire to know if they 
can be so insensible to existing perils as to refuse action in an 
emergency so threatening to the public tranquillity ? We have 
suggested already an alternative to avert the catastrophe threat- 
ened in the Burns case, and which must be more imminent in 
every succeeding case. This is to grant trial by jury to the fugi- 
tive. Will Congress do it ? Or will it persist in adhering to an 
inhuman statute till it finds the people in open insurrection 
against the authority of the Federal G overnment ? Let the ques- 
tion be tested in Congress, and let us see who favor and who 
oppose a step so necessary to avert the most calamitous results in 
the future. We think the North should unite as one man to 
demand so much as this, and demand it of the Congress now in 
session. 



[From Senator Wade.] 

Washington, June 5, 1854. 
My Dear Friend : Please accept my sincere thanks for the very 
kind manner in which you notice my poor speech. Nothing could be 
more grateful to my feelings than the favorable mention of any thing of 
mine by the only journal that fully comprehends the bearing of our 
public affairs at this critical period, and is sufficient for the occasion. 



1854] LETTER FROM DR. BAILEY. 247 

But the Tribune is doing such execution on the enemies of the republic 
that it must not he diverted from its course to please any man. I there- 
fore fear that in finding room for my speech something better will be 
crowded out. But I can rely on your judgment. 

With great respect, B. F. Wade. 



[From the Editor of the National Era.] 

Washington, D. C, June 6, 1854. 

Dear Pike : You ask, What is to be done in Pennsylvania ? I am 
puzzled. If Pollock had withdrawn, and Wilmot been brought, all 
would have gone well. Can you get Pollock to write a stiff anti-slavery 
letter ? A mere anti-Nebraska position, when his party ratified the 
legislation of 1850, will not do. Let him be bold, take the post of 
leader, and announce, now that the Repeal bill has passed, the spirit of 
all legislative compromises violated, and the slave-holding oligarchy is 
determined to rule or ruin, that the free States should unite for freedom, 
rescue the Federal Government from the slave power, denationalize 
slavery by excluding it from every inch of soil within Federal jurisdic- 
tion, and either repeal the Fugitive Slave Act, leaving the constitutional 
stipulation on the subject of fugitives from service to be provided for by 
State legislation, or so amend it as to secure to every person claimed as 
a fugitive the right of jury trial. 

If Mr. Pollock will write a letter like this, I cannot say what the 
Freesoilers may do, but I know what they ought to do. Will he do 
it ? Can you ascertain ? Meantime I will write to J. S. Mann, C. P. 
Jones, W. B. Thomas, Russell Errett, and David Salts, lay the matter 
before them, and get their views. Something must be done. 

I have not forgotten your colonization plan. Will notice it to- 
morrow. 

The address lingers — members are all out of town. It is unexcep- 
tionable, but hath not the trumpet tone. It will not come up to our 
mark. As ever, G. Bailey. 



STRAUB. 

[From the New York Tribune of June 6, 1854.] 

We have received from the Hon. Mr. Straub, of Pennsyl- 
vania, a copy of his speech in favor of the Nebraska bill, deliv- 
ered in the House of representatives at Washington the 17th ult. 



248 STRA UB. [June 

When editors receive such signal favors from members of Con- 
gress as speeches under their own frank, the stereotyped lan- 
guage of acknowledgment is that they are indebted for the favor. 
We must be permitted to change the phraseology on this occa- 
sion and say — We are ashamed of you, Mr. Straub, for your 
speech, and we lament that the intelligent people of the counties 
of Schuylkill and Northumberland should be represented in 
Congress by a man who knows no better, or, knowing better, 
does no better than make a speech and give a vote in favor of 
the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. Mr. C. M. Straub, we 
fear you are a dull man, who has been deluded by others into 
the performance of a wicked act. We are sure you know that 
you have voted wrong, for we do not believe there is a rascal 
among the whole forty-three, whose names we have drawn black 
lines around, but feels like a man who has been caught with a 
sheep on his back. No one will suspect you, Mr. Straub, of 
being a leader in this sorrowful desertion from the duties you 
owed to your constituents and to freedom. You are, we are 
sure, not an author and leader in the mischief, but a dupe of 
others. But we cannot admit that you are an innocent dupe. 
No man from the North who had brains enough to find his way 
from Schuylkill County to Washington could be made to believe 
he was doing right to vote to let in slavery into a territory from 
which it was excluded by solemn compact. 

You have not }^et persuaded yourself that you were right in 
doing this, and it will be very long before you will persuade the 
independent citizens of your district that you were so. It afflicts 
us, Mr. Straub, to find you in such bad company — to find any 
man, indeed, from the State of William Penn and Benjamin 
Franklin going with the reckless Northern politicians for this 
measure. We know that some of your respectable colleagues, 
who have voted with you, hate the measure, and have voted for 
it knowing it was a grievous wrong. If you have ever conversed 
confidentially with Mr. Robbins, of your own State, who voted 
with you, or rather whom you voted with, he has told you so, 
or at least intimated as much as this, and we doubt not, Mr. 
Straub, that you yourself have acknowledged it to your own 
soul if you have never acknowledged it to any besides. 

You were elected, Mr. Straub, as an " Independent Dem- 



1854] 8TBAUB AS AN ORATOR. 249 

ocrat," but you have proved yourself to be any thing but that. 
The 5729 voters who sent you to Congress by a small majority 
over your competitor, among whom we fear there were many 
Whigs, have the best reason in the world for seeing how hollow 
were your pretences to be independent and how vain were your 
professions of Democracy. Genuine Democracy loves liberty and 
never deserts it. Independence consists in acting from our own 
convictions. You, Mr. Straub, have deserted the cause of lib- 
erty, and you have not voted as your judgment and conscience 
dictated. To your distinctive appellation you have thus lost all 
the title you ever had, which, we fear, was not much, since you 
surrendered it for the asking. But, Mr. Straub, we can bestow 
no more words upon you. We deeply regret that you should 
ever have come from obscurity only to perpetrate an act deserv- 
ing of censure and leaving only obloquy on your name, and we 
shall not lament your speedy departure into private life — an 
event, we presume, not far distant. 

But we turn from Mr. Straub to his speech from which we 
propose to cull a few dainty extracts. He states in it that he is 
not an educated man, a declaration which is quite superfluous. 
Nobody would suspect him of ever having been inside of a school- 
house after reading a few paragraphs of his discourse. Mr. 
Straub, however, is able to read the Tribune, and is greatly ex- 
ercised thereby. He quotes from it, and excuses himself for 
doing so by saying that it is in consequence of " the speeches 
and writings contained in that exemplary sheet." This is a 
good reason for Straub to give. It is not often he is so sensible. 
But let us quote a little at length : 

" Several newspapers have been sent to me charging members friendly 
to the bill under consideration with dishonesty of purpose, bribery, and 
corruption. This vile and infamous arrow, intended to pierce, falls harm- 
less at my feet. I pick it up and spit on it. I throw it down and put my 
foot upon it. I pick it up again, and hurl it back from whence it came, 
to the serpent under the rose tree, who is its paternal father. 

" Mr. Chairman, in the outset of my remarks I said I could not divine 
the reason for so much excited feeling. Upon due reflection, however, I 
think I erred in making such a statement. Pass the bill, and Othello's 
occupation's gone ; the neck of the hobby-horse will be broken, and these 
sectional agitators will be politically insolvent ; and they, poor fellows, 
must go begging to seek some other idol god to worship, and to humbug 



250 STBAUB'S MALEDICTION. [June 

the people with, provided their desperation does not drive them to seek re- 
pose in consuming themselves in their own castles, having failed to burn 
down the Capitol. One of the papers I have alluded to is headed ' Midnight 
Edition.' No doubt it was printed at midnight, or on the Sabbath. 
Treason is always perpetrated at midnight. Silence has ceased to be a 
virtue ; and the time has come when certain matters should no more be 
misnamed. Things must be called by their right names. The sympathy I 
bear for those libellous Capitol-burners and treason-conspirators is such as 
I have for a tyrant, traitor, or despot ; and they will be fortunate indeed 
should not the political grave they have dug for the Senator from Illinois 
in the end be used to bury themselves and the remains of their fanatical 
coadjutors. We cannot draw black lines around their names as they have 
around ours, but we can put the mark of Cain upon their foreheads. Were 
these fanatical libellers ignorant men, one might have sympathy for them ; 
but when we consider they are men of cultivated minds, not inferior to any 
in the country for ability and intelligence, and American citizens at that ; 
when all this is done, is it not time to pause, reflect, and to devise ways 
and means of defence ? Haman was hanged the highest of any one ever 
known. It is gratifying to know that the ringleader of the libellers is now 
swinging above Haman in public opinion — let him hang there. He is fit 
food for buzzards." 

There is evidently a tremendous malediction upon somebody 
at the close of that last paragraph, but Straub omits to tell us 
who it is intended for. The preceding portion is in a style of 
virtuous indignation seldom reached. The rhetorical touch about 
the arrow is an illustration of an attempt to throw hot water to 
windward, but the orator evidently seized upon that weapon 
without any clear idea of what he was going to do, and must be 
excused for transfixing himself. 

In another paragraph Mr. Straub admits that what he has to 
say is not worth saying, and that while he thinks he is right he is 
more likely to be wrong. 

At one stage of his remarks Straub launches out after the fol- 
lowing manner. We judge that he must some day have made 
an abolition speech, and that this is an extract from it : 

" Was this rich and heavenly country made for one State, one section, 
or one people ? Did not the same Supreme Power which willed my ex- 
istence also will that of my neighbor ? Did not the same Power which 
created the people of the South also create those of the North ? Has this 
country been peopled without the will and design of Providence ? Has He 
decreed that I should possess advantages which He has designedly refused 
to others of my kind and kin? Are not our component parts the same? 



1854] STRAUB'S ORIGINAL RHETORIC. 251 

Are we not bone of the same bone, and flesh of the same flesh? Is not 
your God my God ? Repudiating, as I do, this sectional prejudice and 
animosity from the bottom of my heart, I cannot agree that this eternal, 
mawkish, selfish hue and cry of one section of the Union against the other, 
of the North against the South, or the South against the North, should be 
kept up. I can only speak for myself, and not for others. But, sir, I re- 
gard the man whose lot is cast in South Carolina or Florida with equal re- 
spect, but no more, than he who was born in Maine or New Hampshire. 
It matters not to me whether he be rich or poor, provided his deportment 
be that of a gentleman and a man of honor ; for riches do not make the 
man. The blood that eddies around the heart of a poor man is as rich, 
pure, and unadulterated as that which runs in the veins of the highest 
and most exalted nobleman beneath the canopy of heaven." 

Yet this flourish is incorporated into a speech which has for 
its ostensible object the extension of a system that utterly denies 
to the poor man any thing but helpless and degrading submission 
to his aristocratic and tyrannical brother, and which holds him in 
chains and fetters forever. O Mr. Straub, Mr. Straub, do you 
not see how great an ass you make of yourself by such talk as 
this, when you the next hour vote to rivet the irons of human 
bondage ? 

With two or three further brief quotations, by way of showing 
the gushing character of Mr. Straub's rhetoric, we must dismiss 
him. We never heard of him before, and we never expect to 
hear of him again. Speaking of the impossibility of saying any 
thing new on the subject, Straub thus delivers himself : 

" As well might you expect to press oil out of a stone with your hand, 
remove the Rocky Mountains from their base with your finger, quench the 
fires of a volcano with a drop of water, or bail the ocean dry with a spoon, 
as to shed any new light by further discussion.' 

But if Straub's arguments are not original his rhetoric cer- 
tainly is. Listen again to a similar flight : 

"Sir, you might as well expect a cannon-ball from a rose-bud, or a 
thunderbolt from the rainbow of Heaven, as that the people of the States 
and Territories will not use their own prerogative to govern themselves." 

One more splurge in this line and Mr. Straub may retire. 
Speaking of some impossible fusion, the Hon. member says : 

" This, to my mind, is the best proof I ever saw that the lion and the 
lamb never were created to be birds of a feather." 



252 CHARACTER OF COUNT GUROWSKI. [June 

Remember tliat these extracts are made from no garbled re- 
port, but from a speech sent to us under the member's own 
frank, and we think our readers may judge pretty well what sort 
of timber the Administration have had furnished to their hand 
out of which to construct their Nebraska majority. The follow- 
ing extract from the Union shows how the tools in this iniquity 
are rendered even more ridiculous by absurd and ludicrous 
commendation : 

"The Washington correspondent of Pottsville (Pa.) Register and Demo- 
crat speaks as follows of the late powerful speech of Colonel Straub in 
favor of the Nebraska bill : 

" In this connection I must speak of the eloquent and powerful speech 
of Colonel Christian M. Straub, your dauntless and reliable representative, 
on the Nebraska-Kansas bill. It did honor to the indomitable constituency 
he represents, while throughout it was replete with argument and intense 
devotion to the great principle of popular sovereignty ; disdaining the 
narrow views which men of minds less comprehensive have taken of this 
important subject, he paused not to touch minor details, but launched forth 
at once on the great merits of the question. He dealt sledge-hammer 
blows on the casques of the opposition, and we have heard that at least 
two votes were changed by this eloquent arid powerful vindication of the 
leading measure of the Adminstration." 

There, after that we\ do not think any man in Congress need 
despair of getting the cheap pay of smooth words from the 
Union for any dirty work he may do. If Straub's constituents 
can swallow his speech, we do not believe they can take down 
the commendation we quote without choking. 



[The sturdy merits and the fiery independence of the writer of 
the following letter, and many others that will be found in suc- 
ceeding pages, demand a word of explanation. His friendship is 
often exhibited very much in the way in which the tenderness 
of a bear is sometimes manifested, by a hug which seems almost 
fatal to the subject of it. The Count Gurowski was a man of 
great genius, great learning, and great fertility of mind. He 
was a copious author, having written many valuable books in the 
Polish, Russian, French, and English languages, and up to the 
day of his death generally had a book in the making. His com- 
ments upon men and things are often severe, but they left no 



1854] LETTER FROM COUNT GUROWSKI. 253 

sting behind tliem, for they were often promptly reversed, and 
were always the fruit of honest and often of but momentary 
conviction. His habit of pointed statement was not restrained 
by his regard for those towards whom it was often directed. 
This eccentricity caused him the loss of friendships which he 
could ill afford to lose. But with all his losses, caused by a 
brusqueness that was the inheritance of a long line of noble ar.d 
wealthy ancestors, he left behind him many sincere mourners for 
his premature exit. Few men were better known than the Count, 
and his rare and admirable qualities made him a welcome addi- 
tion to all circles. His knowledge of the men of his time and of 
public affairs on both sides the Atlantic was well-nigh universal.] 



[From Count Gurowski.] 

Chicago, June 8, 1854. 

My Dear Pike : Here I am, for three days, in mud, cold, and rain. 
The bad state of my health, the crowd on the steamers, and some other 
reasons peculiar to an old and spoiled European having prevented me 
from going with the excursion further than to Rock Island, where I had 
the occasion to hail the majestic Mississippi. Dana went on, and how 
he shall be pleased in the end we shall hear. Snow gave up and went to 
Cincinnati. Still I did not lose my time ; I saw, I observed a great 
deal new to me ; I philosophized about it in my own way, most honora- 
ble Pike, etc., etc., etc. 

In Iowa and here I mixed as much as possible with the thick-soled, 
rag-wearing part of the population, mostly strong Democrats. We 
spoke about the Nebraska infamy ; and to the results gathered therefrom 
I turn your attention. Among the above-mentioned class I found, 
unhappily, a strong pro-Douglas feeling, based exclusively on the 
fallacious notion that the bill recognizes fully the squatter sovereignty 
and the absolute right of the people. They are not to be talked out of 
this position. It is therefore my humble opinion that you may direct 
principally the fire of your disquisitive logic to destroy utterly this 
fallacy by several successive heavy shots fired in the Tribune. If you 
sound the bugle, the country papers will follow. I dare to surmise the 
like to you, because it ought not to be allowed to the fallacy to take 
deeper roots in the conviction of the people. 

I saw here in the hotel for twenty-four hours the great traitor 
Richardson. In justice to the public from various States crowding the 



254 LETTER FROM I. WASHBURN, JR. [July 

hotel, I must say that few, very few, individuals spoke to him, and 
then always assailing his conduct. He defended his action on the 
ground of State and squatter sovereignty ; but once in the heat of a 
discussion he declared that if the final issue should be between slavery 
and anti-slavery, he, in such an extremity, shall join the most respecta- 
ble part of the country — that is, the slave-holders. 

I leave to-morrow for Niagara, where I shall stay a few days. In 
Niagara I shall write out my impressions of the excursion for the 
Tribune ; Dana told me to do it. Should he not be back at that time, 
then I recommend the article to your wise care. 

Thousand loves to Rev. Dr. Ripley. I had no leisure to ponder 
upon trinity. 

Be so kind to attend to the business which the adjoined card ex- 
plains. Yours truly, Gurowski. 



[From Count Gurowski.] 

Niagara Falls, June 14; 1854. 

My Dear Pikus Magnus : Supposing that Dana did not yet return 
to the desk, I send you my philosophical considerations of the excur- 
sion. If you shall find it worth while, then you will put it in English 
and give any form you like. I have some interest (not money, but 
friendship) that it may appear with the principal ideas in our dear 
Tribune. 

To-morrow I start for Montreal, and I shall be in New York next week 
to discuss with you and Ripley the sublime questions of ontology, 
trinity, general and special philosophy. Fry, the atheist, shall greatly 
enjoy the great musical congress. Is he to preside over it or only to 
grease with his activity the wheel works ? At any rate, it is undoubtedly 
his creation. 

European steamers bring sometimes letters for me addressed to the 
office of the Tribune. Look for, that if any arrived they may not be 
lost. Yours truly and sincerely, Gurowski. 



[From Hon. I. Washburn, Jr.] 

"Washington, July 1, 1854. 
My Dear Pike : LTave you noticed in the Express the letter from 
which I send you an extract ? It was written, I suppose, by Watson, 
one of Fillmore's clerks, and suggests the policy of Southern Whigs 



1854] LETTER FROM COUNT GUROWSKI. 255 

and Fillmore men, and accords with the hopes of the Administration 
{vide the Union of to-day). The policy of the former and the hopes 
of the latter are one — acquiescence in the Mississippi repeal and unques- 
tioning submission to the slave power to be secured by continuing the 
present national organization of the Whig party. This of necessity 
involves acquiescence. 

There were some half-dozen Whigs who would have nothing to do 
with the address, and who would have caved on Nebraska if they had 
dared to do it, and were in fact kept to voting right by virtue of infinite 
labor and pains. There are not more than six or seven of them in all, 
and I wish you could contrive to trot them out. One object of the 
address was to give them an opportunity to come out and clear them- 
selves , but this they won't do directly, preferring to keep themselves in 
ii position to cheat their constituents at the next elections. 

Yours ever, I. Washburn, Jr. 

J. S. Pike, Esq. 

Have you analyzed the vote on the Gadsden Treaty ? 



[From Count Gurowski.] 

Newport, R. I., July 30, 1854. 

My Dear Dr. Pike : Glad was I to receive tidings from you, 
having been previously disappointed by your taking leave from New 
York before my return from the g-r-e-a-t excursion. 

I am not sick, but not at all well ; the principal complaints being 
sleeplessness and debility, increased by the heat. A child could whip 
me, and scarcely I am able to drag along my body. Still I hope for 
better in due time. 

Newport is full of beauty, fashion, distinction (Herald lingo), and 
of snobism, absurdity, sham, affectation, would-be something, poor 
attempts at distinction — principally by the means of liveries, carriao-es, 
horses, crests, apish overdressing, exclusiveness of fashion, and upper- 
tendomism — in a word, teeming gorgeously with all the imao-inable 
absurdities, ridicules thus unavoidable in the largest congregation of the 
high American society, gathered together here from all principal spots 
of this mighty republic. I am amused to observe this all, but I cannot 
fulfil your wish to glean all in a whole for the Tribune, as two years 
ago I did it already, and it would be to go again over the once trodden 
ground. 

The world moves on, and we are not yet destroyed by the English- 



256 OUROWSKTS LETTERS. [July 

French, by Kossuth and other etcs. The coming struggle is still to 
come, but the present begins to be rather more and more tedious for the 
invincible Western powers. They cannot get at the bear, and I expect 
soon even stranger things to appear on the world scene. England 
begins to be, some way or other, disheartened. Charley can neither 
lunch at Cronstadt nor dine at Petersburg. By the way, if you have 
prepared your dollars for buying from Russia Sitka and her American 
possessions, keep better your money for another object. I have the 
most positive reasons to maintain that the Paris correspondent of the 
Tribune was taken in by some enterprising adventurer, who tries to 
throw dust in other people's eyes, or pass for a ponderous individuality. 
There is humbug somewhere ; the whole affair as related in the letter 
bearing the strongest character of improbability for one even half-way 
acquainted with the doings, routine, and official usages always strongly 
observed by the Russian government. The Russian legation considers 
the whole affair as a hoax, and so do I. For the sake of the Tribune 
I wish we may be wrong, but it is most unlikely. 

Your discovery of the annexation of the Sandwich Islands will prove 
more truthful than the above-mentioned one. But then what will you 
do, having it ? Shall you admit Indians into the sacrosanctum of Con- 
gress and Capitol ? 

I shall keep my appetite for the dinner at Delmonico's, being sure 
beforehand that the most learned Ripley will find plenty of superior 
qualities in the work of your female friend. But how deep goes the 
friendship ? Is it one a la Pericles ? What do you say to the Tribune 
coming so savagely out against the divorce ? It is friend Horace who 
fights thus for the corner-stones of family and society. It proves to 
my eye that Mine. Horace ties in some way or other rather strongly the 
petticoat over the otherwise so clear understanding of our philosopher. 

I am a little afraid that Dana will be angry with me on account of 
this correspondence from Paris and the cession of Russian America. I 
called his attention to the improbability of any such thing. Finally, 
getting impatient by questions made to me by every street-goer here 
concerning this transaction, I wrote a few lines for the Newport JVetvs, 
and which shall appear to-morrow, denying most emphatically any 
truth in this affair. Everybody will find out that I gave the informa- 
tion, as otherwise an insignificant village paper would not have dared to 
contradict several of the biggest guns of the American press. 

I send this letter at random, not being sufficiently acquainted with 
the geography of my adopted country to know in what State is Calais, 
as you did not put it in your letter. But I suppose it will not go over 



1854] LETTERS OF GUROWSKI. 257 

the seas, and shall reach by attraction the luminous beacon of the State 
of Maine. 

Fare thee well, but not forever, and a hearty mental, spiritual, onto- 
logical shake hands until our reunion. Gurowski. 



[From Count Gurowski. 

Newport, R I., August 12, 1854. 

My Dear Pike : I was deeply moved by your hearty offer, and the 
inducement to accept it was the stronger as there is nothing attractive 
here for me beyond the climate, the society being stupid and snobbish 
in the extreme. But, alas ! I cannot. I am hesitating now between 
going to a water-cure establishment or submitting my infamous body 
to a surgical operation ; decide I must in short about the one or the 
other, as relieved, if not wholly cured, I must be. Further, I could 
not go so far from the doctor who treats me now. It is Gray, in New 
York, and already three days are necessary to have his answer and 
advice. 

If you remember the correspondence from Washington in the 
Tribune three days ago concerning Sitka, it is rather from Newport ; 
finally, therefore, I gained the victory for the common sense against 
humbug. 

I have sent to Dana a long article about the real actual position of 
Austria, her internal force, and possibility of action. I am sorry that 
Dana did not insert it ; it is opposed to Pulaski's and Kossuth's twad- 
dle, but nevertheless true, being based only on positive facts and sound 
logic. To-day I have read the address of Gerritt Smith. Aside of 
the commentaries of the Tribune I find the address a twaddle, and I 
lost thus a great deal of my respect for the great abolitionist. 

Very likely the next steamer may bring some more positive news — 
principally concerning the steps which Austria is to take. But even 
then it will be not the end, but the beginning, of a gigantic struggle to 
last for years. As to the results, I am still believing that finally it i& 
not Russia which shall become the most worsted. But the celebrated 
coming struggle shall again become postponed, and Kossuth shall not 
yet marshal his followers. I am sorry that sometimes the Tribune is 
impassioned by warm feelings and wishes, and prevented thus from 
taking a cool and impartial survey of the events. Thus in two articles 
she re-echoed the phraseology of Kossuth about the proclamation of the 
independence of Hungary, Poland, and Italy .by the Western powers. 
Such proclamations, if they shall be effectual, require to be sustained 



258 LETTER FROM SENATOR FESSENDEN. [Aug. 

and backed on the spot by powerful armies ; otherwise, made at a 
distance of a thousand miles, they will remain moonshine, covering the 
powers with ridicule, and occasioning in the countries to which they 
would be addressed arrests and hangings. When Napoleon proclaimed 
the independence of Italy, he previously destroyed three Austrian 
armies ; the same in 1806 ; he called Poland to arms after having 
annihilated Prussia, and being on the spot with a victorious army. But 
if England and France will make a proclamation, this shall not give 
arms, ammunition, and other required etcs. to countries disarmed and 
occupied militarily by oppressors. Such is the way of logical reason- 
ing ; all the rest is stuff, good for a bunkum speech of a Kossuth. 

Have you not been greatly amused at the pelting of Pierce with 
rotten eggs — and this by one of the chivalry ? I could kiss the valorous 
Southron. 

I am very sorry, on account of my civilized feelings, for not sharing 
the general indignation for the destruction of Grey town. I am always 
glad when the Yankee shows his contempt for ideas and notions con- 
secrated by the respect of the old or so-called civilized world ; and 
then it shall annoy England, and for this alone it is already a good 
thing. 

The narrow-mindedness or the partiality of the American press 
showed itself again most brilliantly in passing, or rather purposely over- 
looking, the treaty of neutrality as concluded in Washington with Russia. 
Its purport and .bearing will be very great for the future, as henceforth 
the question can be considered as settled, and England will be obliged 
to give up definitely her policy. You ought to write a small notice 
about it. The treaty is open to the accession of all maritime powers. 

Good-by, my dear politician. Once more I thank you from the 
utmost of my heart for the kind offer. Gurowski. 



[From Senator Fesscnden.] 

Portland, August 14, 1854. 
Mr Dear Pike : I am home at last, but sick — hardly able to hold 

up my head — and am made vastly worse by seeing how like the 

everybody is behaving just when they ought to be very nice boys. 
What has got into . . . and . . . ? Is this a time to quarrel and get 
their party beaten and themselves politically damned ? Both of them 
want to thrash the slaveocrats, I take it, but it is very clear that only 
one can be the " chosen instrument." 






1854] LETTER FROM GOVERNOR GRIMES. 259 

Isn't it strange that where only united effort can accomplish any 
thing, men seem most disposed to discussion ! We shall be all right in 
this district, and elect Wood. In the Second, Oilman's friends are 
some of them behaving badly, and are resolved to have their friends 
whipped. Pretty patriotism that ! Farley is ruined, and his district 
lost, by his last foolish vote on Elliott's motion, and so-called Whigs 
are doing all they can to defeat us in Penobscot. Is it not provoking 
that with men enough to sweep the State clean we should be beaten by 
the utter folly of men calling themselves Whigs ? 

But you are on the spot, and must see that things go right " away 
down east." Seward will hold you personally responsible, and he is a 
fighting man. Wade was quite ready to shoot that " organism" you 
spoke of, if he deserved to be shot, and I will set him on to you if you 
don't carry the Fifth all hollow. 

We look to Washington, Hancock, and Aroostook for one repre- 
sentative to Congress, five senators, and representatives to legislature 
too numerous to mention. I mean to settle the difficulty in the Second 
somehow, if I sleep with the whole district. 

Your friend always, W. P. Fessenden. 

J. S. Pike, Esq. 



[From Governor Grimes.] 

Burlington, Iowa, August 14, 1854. 

My Dear Sir : We have carried the State by a handsome major- 
ity. I am elected by probably some twenty-five hundred majority. 
Harrington is elected to Congress, but I fear that Clark is beaten. 
There will be a majority (a large one) in the legislature anti-Nebraska, 
and a small Whig majority on joint ballot, according to old party lines. 

Our triumph would have been more complete if we had had any aid 
from abroad. Our friends in Washington and New York were very 
liberal in promises, but in nothing else. I .addressed the people in 
sixty-three places, and travelled in my own conveyance sixteen hun- 
dred and ninety-five miles. I canvassed upwards of forty counties. 
Am now used up, confined to my room, and my throat and chest 
are covered with blisters, applied to reduce the inflammation of my 
lungs. The canvass was too hard for me ; but I was resolved to 
triumph or die in the effort. If I had not been weighted down with 
two unpopular candidates for Congress, and with some objectionable 
county tickets, I would have beaten my competitor from six thousand 
to sixteen thousand votes in the State. 



260 LETTER FROM CHARLES A. DANA. [Sept. 

Our Southern friends have regarded Iowa as their northern strong- 
hold. ' I thank God it is conquered. 

I hope to see you sometime and to rejoice with you over the result,, 
though, to tell you the truth, I have a kind of church-yard cough that 
I do not like much, and of which I have some fears. I think I will 
conquer it also. 

It is a pity you do not live in Iowa, so that I could make you a 
brigadier or some other kind of general. 

Yours truly, James W. Grimes. 



[From Charles A. Dana.] 

Office of the Tribune, [ 
New York, September 1, 1854. ) 

Dear Pike ; I've been too busy to write ; besides, there was 
nothing special to say. 

You see they have carried it against us and cut the Tribune down. 
I don't believe it will do any permanent harm, though it must bring 
down the weekly to about one hundred thousand, I calculate. The 
saving effected by the change is some $550 a week — no trifle in 
these times. In addition to this, I am negotiating for a simultaneous 
rise to three cents by all the three papers. The Times is glad enough 
of the chance, and the Herald, I suppose, will come into the arrange- 
ment ; at least Hudson says he is in favor of it, and when Bennett 
comes home, in about a fortnight, I shall push for immediate execution. 
The Tribune folks have agreed, and appointed me to settle it. I reckon 
that all three papers doing it together, neither one can suffer the 
slightest injury. There's no fear of any new competition ; $300,000 
would scarcely suffice to create a new journal to hold its own with 
these three, and as for any serious decline in the demand for papers, 
that is still more out of the question. Hitherto the Daily Tribune, as 
such, has never made a cent, but has existed solely that something might 
be made on the weekly and semi-weekly. The proprietors of the 
Times admit that they have not made any thing in three years' existence, 
and also that, with thirty-five thousand circulation, they can't make 
any thing at present prices. To the Tribune it will make a difference 
from the start of $1200 a week, or $62,000 a year. This will leave 
something for leeway. 

The Whigs have got to nominate Greeley for Governor and fight 
the Know-Nothings, who are going in on a bargain to elect Bronson 
Governor and Fillmore Senator. Weed and the other leaders admit 






1854] DANA ON KNOW-NOTHINGS. 261 

that Greeley is the only man who will do at all for the battle. The 
Softs will run Seymour on the rum tack, and it will be an interesting 
contest. 

The children are all well, especially the fourth, a girl, born last Sun- 
day morning at Westport. 

Snow tells me he has sacrificed mining property for which he had 
paid $12,000 cash, and glad to get off so. Greeley has fared worse. 
Why, last week he had to let good lands in Pike county, Pennsylvania, 
on which he had paid $5000, go to the dogs because he couldn't raise 
$500. So we go, and the worst not come yet. We are lucky who 
are not under the necessity of borrowing. 

Good-by. Why the devil don't you write something once in a 
while ? Yours ever, C. A. D. 



[From Charles A. Dana.] 

Office of the Tribune. ) 
New York, September 25, 1854. ) 

Dear Pike : The plan of raising the price is knocked in the head 
for the present by Raymond. The other proprietors of the Times 
were ready, but he refused. The Herald was keen for it, and so were 
we. You say it would cut off circulation ; not much, I think, for 
people must have newspapers, and the three are without competition. . . . 

Raymond is nominated for Lieutenant-Governor, but he'll run 
mightily behind the ticket. Clark will have an enormous vote, a big 
majority, I think, though G. says in the Tribune only a plurality, in 
order to keep people from betting ; but R. will be cut by both tem- 
perance men and Know-Nothings. Still, I don't believe he will fail of 
the election. C. A. D. 



Office of the Tribune, ) 
New York, November 22, 1854. \ 

Great and Immortal Pike : It's delicious to get these wise coun- 
sels from a man of your amount of sense. According to your sugges- 
tions, the Know-Nothings shall never be mentioned again in the Tribune, 
except to give 'em a devil of a whack. And as they make it an article 
of discipline not to take or advertise in the Tribune, we shall not waste 
any soft sawder on 'em unnecessarily. It's war, and there's no use 
talking peace. However, we have about got through with 'em, I 
expect, having devoted two editorial columns in to-day's paper to their 



262 LETTER FROM C. A. DANA. [Nov. 1854. 

special benefit. How much Horace intends to give to-morrow is more 
than I can say yet. 

As for the Soule affair, that happened so long ago that it's forgotten. 
I am sure, however, we were right about it ; and your directions on 
the subject are like Nicholas ordering the siege of Silistria from Peters- 
burg. 

See here, when are you coming to this metropolis ? Your presence is 
desired by many persons, mainly friends. The Tribune has so far been 
making money the wrong way since July, but we expect that the renewals 
on the weekly will fetch up. These renewals come in between now and 
February or March 1st. Since July 1st we have received $10,000 more 
than in the same time last year, but the enormous consumption of 
paper for the weekly has cost some $15,000 more than the entire 
receipts. This rather seems to indicate that last year was not so very 
profitable as it seems. 

Let's know when you will come on, if you are to come at all. I 
should have written before, but for fear that the letter would not reach 
you. 

The Count is better than for years. James is hard at work on his 
reply to Beecher, which I judge will make a book of four hundred 
pages. Parts of it which I have heard are splendid writing. Bayard 
Taylor will make $7000 by lecturing this winter. Snow wears a mous- 
tache, and Horace has got a new hat, won on the election. 

Ever yours, C. A. D. 






Jan.] LETTER FROM I. WASHBURJS, JR. 263 



1855. 



Hodse of Representatives, ) 
January 19, 1855. J 

My Dear Pike : I have this morning your letter assuring rne of 
your return to New York and your proposed visit to Washington. Glad 
you are to come here. 

We are having a time on the Pacific Railroad bill, and I think the 
most feasible and practicable scheme for a road ever introduced, which 
gives a chance for a Northern road as good as any other, and which I 
have no doubt is the only one that will be built, is to be defeated by the 
New York Whigs under the lead of Campbell. With the bill now 
before the House the Northern road will be built, because the grant to 
it is valuable ; the lands are valuable. Now, if we can secure to the 
North at any time equal rights, shan't we do it ? Shan't we make sure 
of what we can ? Had we passed Richardson's bill in 1853, we'd not 
have repealed the Missouri Compromise in 1854. 

Mel. is wide awake — has been talking to Houston ; thinks he may 
be right, but won't touch him if ain't sound. I fear Southern Loco- 
focos ; old Benton has backed down, old Sam may ; still, he may be 
the best we can find. 

I have heard that old Truman has recently discovered that the Whig 
party is alive and kicking, and that by co-operating with the Know- 
nothings North and South (and of course ignoring the slavery question) 
can and will elect Cullom of Tennessee next President. What do you 
think ? Ever and truly yours, I. Washburn, Jr. 

J. S. Pike, Esq. 



RETURNING FROM THE CAMPAIGN. 
[From the Neio York Tribune of January 19, 1855.] 

When Mr. Pierre Soule was appointed Minister to Spain, 
amid the general plaudits of the fillibnsters, for the avowed pur- 



26-4 SOULE' S MISSION A FIASCO. [Jan. 

pose of acquiring Cuba, we took the liberty to declare that there 
never was a more shallow attempt at diplomatic engineering, 
and that the new minister would signally fail in the objects of 
his mission. So much was apparent to every man of sense in the 
country. Not so was it with the fillibusters, however, and not 
so was it with Mr. Soule himself. They thought and he thought 
that Cuba was to be had, and Mr. Soule the man to get it. The 
attempt has been made under every favorable circumstance that 
design and happy accident could bring to bear upon it, but it 
has altogether and egregiously failed. Mr. Soule has resigned 
his mission or has been recalled, and comes home as empty- 
handed as he went. Neither the formal representations of our 
very intense plenipotentiary, made at the outset, as we can 
imagine with a sedulous regard to dramatic effect, showing how 
impossible it was that Spain could much longer hold Cuba against 
the United States, and how much better, therefore, it was not 
to resist inevitable destiny, but to make an amicable cession, 
sweetened with a most liberal pecuniary compensation, nor his 
subsequent negotiations under far more encouraging circum- 
stances, have been of any avail. 

Cuba is not ours, and the tactics of both the fillibusters and 
the Administration which sent Soule to accomplish their pur- 
poses are now totally changed. Cuba is not only not annexed, 
but the design of obtaining it is to be abandoned. Such, at 
least, is the pretence. But how large a trap, or of what sort, is 
under this peck of meal, time only will disclose. Know-noth- 
ingism is rife, and anti-Nebraska sentiment floods the Free 
States. This dropping of the Cuba question in certain circles of 
the sham Democracy is nothing but an adroit movement of lead- 
ing politicians to get under shelter while the storm lasts which 
threatens them with destruction. 

In such a state of things Mr. Soule returns in very ill humor, 
out of sorts with Know-nothingism, anti-Nebraskaism, and with 
the Administration, whose Foreign Secretary, at least, is well 
understood to be quite tired of his antics in Europe. He is said 
to threaten war on his own private account when he shall arrive. 

But we hope to hear no more of Mr. Soule. He has had his 
day. He came to the Senate with a high reputation as an elo- 
quent and effective criminal lawyer. He sustained his reputa- 



1855] SOULE' S CAPERS. 265 

tion with a commendable industry while there. He made in 
that body one or two speeches, which, though commonplace 
enough in their matter, made quite an impression by his oratori- 
cal and dramatic manner. Soule was cut out for the stasre. He 
is an actor by nature. He is acute, penetrating, and voluble, 
but of genuine statesmanlike qualities he has not one. He 
aches for theatrical effects ; he sighs for a chance to make a sen- 
sation ; he passionately longs for notoriety. Give him these and 
he is happy. Cuba is simply his play ; Spain his stage ; the 
United States his theatre, and the admiring people thereof his 
audience. Thus far he has managed his diplomatic situations 
with some success ; but, through all, he has been but the player. 
He has exhibited no sense as a man, and no skill as a diplomat. 
He has needlessly provoked where he should have aimed to 
please, and he has made enemies where he should have made 
friends. He has cut capers in Madrid, and he has flirted in and 
out of France like a peevish servant-girl — slamming the doors 
behind him. The cut of his coat, his duly chronicled calls upon 
Rachel, and his coquetting with the disreputable Queen of Spain 
have been among the most conspicuous features of his career. 
With the most timely aid from the chapter of accidents in the 
Black Warrior affair and the Spanish revolution — both coming 
to his assistance in the very nick of time — he has yet accom- 
plished nothing beyond the object he, doubtless, had most at 
heart — the being talked about. Not one thing has he done 
toward a redress of old or new grievances ; not one peg has he 
advanced in loosing the attachments of Cuba to Spain. On the 
contrary, he has excited the open hostility of France, and the 
intense hatred of the Spanish government and people against the 
presumed piratical designs and disposition of the United States. 
Of course we do not complain that he has succeeded in strength- 
ening the bonds which bind Cuba to Spain instead of weaken- 
ing them. We only adduce the fact in evidence of his entire 
lack of skill to accomplish the objects he was so pompously sent 
to attain. 

We now dismiss Mr. Soule to the quiet of private station. 
His case is one which especially calls for the tender mercies of 
the Know-nothings, and if they should never do "nothing" 
worse in Louisiana than secure his undivided attention to the 



266 POLYGAMY. [Feb. 

duties of his legal circuit, we shall not be disposed to quarrel 
with them. He has had his day of eclat, and has contrived to 
secure an unusual share of public notice during his meteoric ap- 
pearance. We have had flash and explosion — the going up like 
a rocket and coming down like its stick. We now say of him, 
that after so much clap-trap and magniloquence of word and 
deed, ending in such little results, a few splendid passages of 
silence would improve his reputation. 



UTAH AND POLYGAMY. 

[From the New York Tribune ] 

Washington, February 4, 1855. 

The progress of events denotes that the irrepealable settle- 
ment of the questions embraced in the Compromise of 1850 is 
soon to be disturbed. The Territorial Government of Utah is 
one of the fruits of that settlement. As that anomalous com- 
munity of Mormons grows in importance the question becomes 
daily more serious, How shall it be treated ? That it is en- 
vironed by grave embarrassments is apparent to the most super- 
ficial. The subject came before Congress the other day by indi- 
rection, and the opinions expressed and the votes given indicate 
a decided dissatisfaction with the idea of surrendering the reins 
of government of the Utah Territory into the hands of the Mor- 
mons. A way of escape from the existing state of things has 
been suggested by a partition of the Territory among its neigh- 
bors on the east and west ; extending the limits of California 
and Oregon to the east and those of Kansas and Nebraska to the 
west, till they join each other in the heart of Utah. The sug- 
gestion is not devoid of merit, and may be found to be the best 
practicable method of peaceably eradicating the degrading and 
corrupting doctrines of the Mormon priesthood. 

Apropos to this subject I subjoin a curious and striking ex- 
tract of a private letter from a lady, which has fallen into my 
hands, that touches upon the social relations of the Mormons. 1 
extract from the letter as follows : 

" . . . . You ask me to give a little more in detail the incident in 
the cars that occurred as we were crossing the Alleghanies, of which I 



1855] A MODEL MORMON. 267 

briefly spoke when we met. I could not half tell you the story now, 
after the vividness with which it impressed me has so nearly passed away, 
and if I could, it would not produce the effect it did upon me. I heard it 
after weeks of anxiety had weakened my system, when my long and weari- 
some journey had left me but the strength of a child, and my restless and 
excited mind seized upon it in all its reality without the melioration 
always lent to a subject by our own indifference to, and personal disconnec- 
tion with it. A wrong done to another becomes an outrage when prac- 
tised upon ourselves. I had, through watching and fasting, become so 
etherealized as to lose sight of this selfish difference and to see my neigh- 
bor as myself. I felt that all womankind had been insulted and sacrificed 
in the person of ' Margaret. ' It was my duty not less than hers to avenge 
it. I could have sent the aggressor tumbling into the gorge of one of those 
mountain torrents, and considered it but retributive justice. 

" The Mormon elder came into our car, near the foot of the mountains, 
and sat near us. He would have been good-looking if he had looked good. 
He had a peculiar manner — it indicated such perfect satisfaction with him- 
self and the world. I heard him say he had gone to Salt Lake City before 
the first furrow had been turned in the ground. I listened, for who is not 
curious concerning that wonderful exodus ? I heard him tell of their 
great temple and how it went on stone by stone, and with each the power 
of the devil grew less and less. How new proselytes came pouring in to 
swell the host that was waiting ' to receive the Christ when he should 
come to reign a thousand years upon the earth. ' He was a man of no read- 
ing. His knowledge was (like Mr. Gradgrind's) confined to 'facts,' but 
he had a natural gift for conversation, and gave a rapid and skilful outline 
of his subject in a way that interested you at once. When the night grew 
dark he came and sat behind us. He had fallen into the hands of a gentle- 
man whose dexterity in questioning led him on to speak freely of himself, 
and so gradually they came to the ' peculiar institution. ' He said the 
women seldom cared to marry men of their own age, that their affections 
inclined toward the priests and elders. This convinced me that if the 
men are all hypocrites, the women are not wholly so, but that they do 
this for the exaltation of their souls. My lawyer (for so I shall call the 
questioner) asked whether the women were not jealous of each other, 
especially the younger ones. The saint answered, ' No.' ' Some few,' he 
continued, ' were a little difficult, but it was mostly confined to the young. 
To be sure his wife felt it when he married a second time, the rest had 
never cared.' 

" ' Did she care so very much ? ' continued the lawyer. 

" ' Oh, yes ; I thought at first it would have killed her. You see when I 
became a convert I did not understand that part of it, because my wife and 
I had been so happy together. "We married early, and had scarcely been a 
day apart. When I wanted to go to Salt Lake she did not incline to go, 
because she did not see so clearly as I the truths of our great religion — but 



268 MORMON SOCIAL TRAGEDIES. [Feb. 

the idea of my marrying was no hindrance. It did not occur to her as 
possible, and it was not for a long time after I got there that I thought of it 
myself. Margaret did not mix with the people. She retained her old East- 
ern ways and was always at home. I had never let her do much work (her 
hands were too small for that). She was stately in her form, and she had 
a queer way of twisting her long hair round her head, so it looked like a 
crown. The folks said she was proud, and one or two who had daughters 
asked me why I did not take a wife, and if I were not afraid ? So it came 
upon me gradually, while upon her, you see, it fell like a stroke.' 

" ' You must have found it difficult to break such a thing to her.' 

' ' ' Yes, it was hard to do. But at last I said I will do it on Thursday, 
and on Thursday evening when I came home she was standing in the gar- 
den, and I went and put my arm around her, and told her how it had been 
revealed to me that I must marry again. ' 

" ' What did she say?' 

" ' Nothing. Not one word. She just gave one scream. I declare I 
shall never get that scream out of my ears. I believe I should hear it if I 
were on the Andes. I thought I heard it a minute ago. ' 

" The sleet rattled against the windows of our car, and the bleak mid- 
night wind swept down the mountains, and I thought I heard it too. 

" The Mormon proceeded : ' And then she fell like one dead. I 
thought she was dead, but she came to after a while, and, would you be- 
lieve it, she never mentioned the subject to me. I could not find it in my 
heart to say a thing about it again for more than five months. Meantime 
she had taken a cold, and did not get strong again. I saw she was wear- 
ing the thought of it about her like a mourning weed, and so, when she 
seemed a little better, I talked to her about the great principles of our 
faith, and how those to whom the Spirit revealed itself must follow its dic- 
tates or be forever cast into hell. And I told her she need not fear my 
affection for her would be divided, for I had had a vision, in which it was 
told me that I should love her forever, and that we should never die, but 
live together and see the thousand years of Christ's reign upon the earth, 
and be by him rewarded for our obedience and willingness now to cast 
aside our selfish human will and sacrifice to him. Margaret was always a 
true believer. But I had always been wandering in search of a rock of 
faith until I anchored here. I had heard from pulpit to pulpit such con- 
flicting doctrine, I could lay my hand on nothing that seemed secure, and 
I think she was unwilling to set me adrift again, and so she consented. 
My parting from her was a dreadful one, for she moaned and wept like one 
in despair, and — I was fool enough to cry too.' 

" ' I don't wonder,' said his interlocutor. ' It is hard wholly to sub- 
due nature, even at the call of duty ; ' and he gave a low laugh. 

"' When I came back,' continued the Mormon, 'it had been just so 
all the time. She had never eaten and never slept, but only walked up and 
down always, hour after hour.' 



1855] BESIEGING THE TREASURY 269 

" ' Well, how did she get used to it ? ' 

" ' She retained the house I had first built, of course. It was large, 
and we had no children, and she was very lonely, for I was necessarily 
much away from her. I went as often as I could, but I married in quick 
succession two others, and so we were much separated, and she fretted in 
my absence. At last it was this, or she saw the folly of resisting her fate ; 
she got quiet in her mind — used to it in fact. People do get used to any 
thing, you know. When the iron force of circumstances presses them on 
every side, and they do not know where or how to resist, they at least grow 
quiet. She took it into her head, after a while, that she would not live 
very long, and she said it was not worth while to be separated so much the 
little time she was here, and, if I pleased, the families might all come and 
live together. I told her she was sensible and getting used to things. 
But she only said something to herself about the collapsing sides of an iron 
shroud pressing out her life. It sounded like poetry. She always had a 
way of picking up such odd things out of books. ' 
" ' Did she get well ? ' 

" ' No, not yet. Indeed her cough is rather worse, and she is more 
feeble, but she seems happy enough. She is very kind to every one, 
especially the two little children, and she will get better when the spring 
comes. I know she will, because it has been revealed to me that she is to 
live and dwell with me a thousand years when Christ shall reigii and judge 
the world.' " 



WASHINGTON IN CRAYON. 

[From the New York Tribune.'] 

Washington, Monday, February 5, 1855. 

The general topics that occupy "Washington just now may be 
stated as three in number : 

I. "We have that which prevails among the army of occupa- 
tion encamped here and besieging the Treasury. This is to dig 
down that mountain of twenty-five millions of gold now in the 
possession of Uncle Sam, and distribute it among the allies. 
The French spoliation men want five millions, and the Texas 
bondholders eight millions and a half. This takes over half. 
A considerable portion of the residue is wanted on various 
claims of different divisions of the besiegers. A printed argu- 
ment, addressed to members of Congress, in behalf of one of the 
biggest demands, naively states that the money is in the Treasury 
and it is bound to be paid out to somebody, and, in the author's 



270 OGLETHORPE'S BATTLE CRY. [Feb. 

opinion, no better use can be made of it than to give it to those 
he represents. Each class of claimants takes the same view of 
the case. Whether our Sevastopol is to fall at this session is not 
so clear. One thing is plain, however, that, unlike the Crimean 
siege, it is the besiegers and not the besieged here who have the 
most ammunition. The battle waxes lively, and the Zouaves of 
the expedition are scaling every height, every one armed with at 
least one of Colt's pistols. But above and below, on the plain as 
well as at the height, each member of this grand army is on the 
alert and doing his best to carry the works. Old General Ogle- 
thorpe used to say, in the Spanish campaigns, that he had the 
most invincible troops in the world. There was no position they 
could not take when he cried out, " Boys, take that ; for there 
you will find plenty of rum and money. ' ' 

II. There is a strong current of solicitous speculation setting 
in the Know-nothing channel. Scores of anxious spectators 
crowd the banks and wistfully desire to know what is to be the 
end of this sudden freshet that is here tumbling along so furiously. 
They are all ready to launch their dug-outs on its bosom, if they 
thought it would not soon lose itself in the sands of its own bot- 
tom. All around are to be seen gray heads and bald heads that 
have been laid up in ordinary nobody knows how long, bobbing 
about on their legs in seedy garments, and like battered beaux in 
a ball-room, playing their old parts over again, only to be laughed 
at for their pains. Meantime the mystic " Sam" is most po- 
litely bowed to by everybody seven times a day, and every soul 
considers he has no chance of saving his own soul unless he con- 
siders " Sam" as infallible as the Pope. In fact, there is in 
political circles what may be called a general revival, and the 
dread of political damnation is everywhere visible — while in 
" Sam" seems to centre the only hope of salvation. There 
appears to be a general state of conviction preparatory to a gen- 
eral shouting. Thus it is Sam and the Know-nothings, and the 
Know-nothings and Sam, on every corner and in every circle. 
Nobody can witness the spectacle without perceiving that we are 
the greatest, wisest, and most intelligent people on the face of 
the globe. 

The third grand panoramic feature in the existing condition 
of things at Washington is the lugubrious aspect of the old line 



1855] SLAVERY ISSUES IN DANGER. 271 

or Pierce Democracy. Here is a promiscuous crowd, much in 
the condition of the English troops at Balaklava — shabby, 
tattered, dirty, exhausted, sick, and dying. They appear and 
feel as if they had been through at least six campaigns, and been 
beaten in every one. The Southern wing beholds the ominous 
mouth of the Know-nothing gulf yawning to receive them, 
while the Northern branch has been torn in pieces and destroyed 
by Nebraska. Whether true or not, it is yet believed that Kan- 
sas is to be taken possession of by the slavery propaganda, and 
thus Douglas and Company cry out, " Woe is me, Alhama !" 
They profess now to have believed that Kansas would be free, 
and that thus they would escape being brought to the stake for 
their crimes. The present prospect blears the expectation, and 
they wander pensive and disconsolate. Everywhere it is sung and 
said that the Democratic party has been ruthlessly slaughtered in 
the house of its friends. That powerful and triumphant organi- 
zation which swept the country at the last presidential election 
by unprecedented majorities so proud and arrogant, and which 
haughtily trod freedom in the dust one short year ago, is now 
confessedly demoralized and in ruins from its own conduct, and 
the mourners go about the streets. J. S. P. 



KNOW-NOTHINGISM. 
[From the New York Tribune.] 

Washington, February 6, 1855. 
Surveying the politics of the country from any thing like a 
high point of view, we find little to command our respect at the 
present moment. The issue made up by the North last year 
against the extension of slavery was lofty and intelligent. The 
citizens of the Free States, of every class and degree felt hum- 
bled and indignant that a measure for the extension of slavery 
over territory of our own, already devoted to freedom, should 
have been proposed by one of their own number, and supported 
by enough of their own representatives to carry it. Rising in 
their might at such monstrous treachery, they forgot old party 
distinctions, and readily combined, forgetful of every other ob- 
ject, except the one great and absorbing one of resistance to the 



272 KNOW-NOTHINGISM RAMPANT. [Feb. 

spread of slavery into free territory. There was something not 
only respectable, but honorable and dignified in this spectacle. 

And it did seem that there was enough of grave matter in 
such a contest to fix the public mind, for a while at least, to cer- 
tain great principles of action. It was not unreasonable to think 
that such a distinct and important issue would not easily be oblit- 
erated or forgotten. It was natural to suppose that a party 
organized and contending for a point of such magnitude would 
remain confronting its antagonist until it or its opponent was de- 
feated. But all these expectations have been suddenly put to 
flight. Just in the heat of the contest, and almost in time to 
destroy the moral effect of the unanimous popular condemnation 
of the Nebraska bill — coming in, indeed, in the very midst of 
the triumphing party of freedom — the party of the Know-noth- 
ings rears everywhere its extended front. The great issue be- 
fore the country is shoved aside, and a new one, which is neither 
new nor pressing, is foisted before the public to divert attention 
and attract universal notice. 

To hold no controversy in respect to the relative importance 
of the issues, supposing, indeed, that each had equal claims to 
regard under other circumstances ; yet it cannot be a matter of 
doubt that under those of the present case the extension of slavery 
was the question that first deserved attention and settlement. 
There was not the least reason in the world why the ancient and 
vexed question of the undue influence of the Roman Catholic 
priesthood and the question of the influence of foreign emigra- 
tion should have been thrust before the country to supplant one 
of such vital moment as the slavery question. Such a spectacle 
belittles the politics of the country, and is anything but flattering 
to the intelligence of the people. We had a potent, dignified, 
far-reaching issue before — one of sufficient consequence to en- 
gross the thoughts and challenge the active exertions of every 
thinking man in the country — an issue as yet wholly undecided, 
or, as far as it is decided, bearing directly against the great inter- 
ests of freedom and humanity. It is afflicting to every just and 
earnest man to consider that the whole contest, from which so 
much was hoped for liberty, should be thrown into confusion, 
and every hopeful anticipation jeopardized, if not destroyed, by 
such a state of things. 



1855] KNOW-NOTHINGS ON SLAVERY. 273 

Yet mean and discreditable as the whole thing looks, there 
must still be an honorable path for true men, amid all the cross- 
purposes and conflicting interests of the existing complications. 
The great question is, What is the path which a wise discretion, 
acting with a steady view to the accomplishment of the great pur- 
pose of preventing the spread of slavery, points out ? The entire 
North desires that slavery shall be kept out of Kansas, and a vast 
majority, enough to elect a great preponderance ol members of 
Congress, is ready to vote to keep it out. So much is demon- 
strated by the last election. But with the Know-nothing ele- 
ments rising all around us, in the North and in the South, openly 
professing that they do not recognize the slavery question, or 
that they subordinate it to the cardinal doctrines of their faith, 
what are we to expect ? Suppose men known to be true to free- 
dom are elected governors and members of Congress in the 
North by Know-nothing votes ? Is it not equally true that men 
who are not friends of freedom are elected by the Know-noth- 
ings of the North ? If perchance the Know-nothing organiza- 
tion had sprung into being two years earlier — had that been 
possible — we will not undertake to say it might not have served 
a useful purpose by electing Southern men who would not have 
ratted, as the great body of Southern Whigs did, on the Nebraska 
bill. And it might, too, have prevented the election of many 
of the Northern doughfaces who sold us out in that memorable 
contest. If Know-nothingism is strong enough to stand without 
the aid of the slavery propaganda, we probably should in that 
case have been saved the immense villany of that sacrifice. • So 
much we feel constrained to accord to Know-nothingism. But 
now the case is utterly changed. The same reason that might 
have done the North justice in that event will consummate in- 
justice now. We want slavery kept out of Kansas. We want a 
Congress that will vote that that Territory shall never come in 
as a Slave State ; and if we had a clear field and a fair fight we 
could secure that result. But how is it to be with our Know- 
nothing friends ? They propose to say everywhere, North and 
South, " Oh ! we have nothing to do with the slavery question. 
We must be harmonious and decline to act objectively on that. 
We must not vote for slavery nor against slavery." And what 
follows ? Clearly enough this : That if the Tom Lokers and 



2T4 THE SOUTH AFTER NEBRASKA. [Feb. 

Simon Legrees cany out the doctrine of popular sovereignty in 
Kansas, which being interpreted means the introduction of sla- 
very there by virtue of the bowie-knife and the revolver, why, 
our Know-nothing friends from the North won't vote against 
her admission as a Slave State. Is not this it? Does anybody 
doubt it ? Where, then, are we ? Northern Know-nothingism 
is to pitch into the thirty -fourth Congress a mixed lot of repre- 
sentatives — Freesoil men, Hunkers, Silver Grays, Conserva- 
tives, and what-nots — out of which enough are to be found who 
will unite with their Southern brethren on the ground of non- 
interference with the peculiar institution, and thus sell the North 
out on the only great anti-slavery issue now before the country, 
to wit, the admission of Kansas as a Slave State. 

If Know-nothingism persists in ignoring this great issue in the 
North (there are those who say it will not), the result we indi- 
cate seems inevitable, and the government is thus to be launched 
into the hands of the slavery propaganda, apparently never to be 
extricated but by civil convulsion. 

"We have not answered the question we have put, and it is 
difficult to answer it. But do not the foregoing considerations 
rise spontaneously to the mind of every opponent of slavery ex- 
tension whenever he inquires after its solution ? J. S. P. 



KANSAS AND SLAVERY. 
[From the Nero York Tribune.] 

Washington, February 10, 1855. 
Some of the Southern men coolly say they have taken Kansas 
so easily that they think it may be worth while to take Nebraska 
also. This remark at least shows the drift of opinion among 
the slavery propaganda as to their expectation of making Kansas 
a Slave State. They entertain no doubt of it. And why ? Sim- 
ply because they believe that they will be able to control the leg- 
islation of the Territory, and that the North will back down in 
its opposition to her admission with a slave constitution. Hot 
and impetuous, the Southern men are yet full of cool subtlety and 
wise action. They carry their objects at one time by boisterous 



1855] THE SLAVEHOLDERS AT WORK. 275 

threats, and at another by the gentlest conduct. They are now 
as quiet as the occupants of a dove's nest. They have taken a 
gigantic stride toward domination over the continent by the 
Nebraska bill, and they can afford to wait calmly and patiently 
the subsidence of the Northern waters of agitation. When the 
time comes, as they expect it soon will on the Kansas question, 
then they will vary the entertainment by shaking the raw-head 
and bloody bones which they always flourish with so much effect, 
and again commence the roar which has so often frightened 
Northern men from their propriety. Then, as of old, they ex- 
pect to see the Northern sheep in Congress again scamper. We 
•do not wish to be considered as believing in the brag of the pro- 
paganda. We have scouted it too often to lie quietly under such 
an imputation. But we have faith in works. And from these 
we infer there is imminent danger of Kansas becoming a Slave 
State. The slave-holders are resolutely at work. They have 
elected their delegate to Congress ; by foul means, it is true. 
But is anybody fool enough to suppose they will stick on the 
means of accomplishing their object ? Has not the whole trans- 
action been foul from the start ? The passage of the Kansas 
and Nebraska bill was an outrage on the North and on the forms 
of legislation — a high-handed act of usurpation. The election of 
delegate was an outrage. We need expect nothing but a series 
of outrages to the end. The election of the Territorial Legisla- 
ture is to be an outrage. It is appointed for March — long before 
the spring emigration can reach there. The bowie-knife Mis- 
sourians will elect the Legislature of Kansas as they elected its 
delegate. Does anybody doubt it ? Let the future be judged 
by the past. Who but the propaganda paid the expenses of the 
bullies who invaded and carried the late election ? Remember 
that the slave-holders, since the passage of the Nebraska bill, 
have not been bragging, but working. And what is the North 
doing to offset their action ? In whose keeping is the freedom 
of Kansas ? In the hands of its own people '{ They are yet but 
a handful and are overborne and outvoted by the peripatetic 
legions of the propaganda, who, like Arabs, come and go in a 
night. There is no sufficient force on the ground to maintain 
itself against these Cossacks of civilization. And who in the 
North is doing any thing ? Is the freedom of Kansas in any- 



276 AN EMIGRATION SOCIETY WANTED. [Feb. 

body's keeping there ? If it is, we have yet to learn whose. It 
is everybody's business in the North to exclaim that Kansas will 
be free. It is nobody's to do any thing toward making her so. 
"When we point to facts to show what slavery is doing, and 
express our apprehensions of the consequences, then we are met 
with the declaration, " Oh, you must not talk so discouragingly ; 
you must believe Kansas will be a Free State. ' ' But this is to 
cry peace when there is no peace. Kansas is to be a Slave State 
unless the North arises and organizes and does something to 
prevent it. We want an Emigrant Society that has life and 
/ energy and brains in it. God knows what the Worcester organi- 
zation has accomplished — we don't. It promised well and in- 
spired the hopes of the friends of freedom at the beginning. 
But whether its mettle has failed, or its money given out, or 
whether it has been diverted from its purpose, we do not know. 
It has certainly accomplished little that can yet be perceived. If 
it has laid the foundation for any thing in the future, we shall 
rejoice to know even that. But the North, which has so much 
talk on public affairs, reserves its action for private concerns. 
Its actual conduct on all turning-points in the slavery question 
has thus far been chiefly illustrated in backing out. We trust it 
is not to be so in Kansas. But why is it not to be expected ?' 
Will anybody tell us ? Hasn't the backing out always been done 
just at the appropriate moment of time ? Behold 1820 — 1850 — 
1851. Behold Kansas in the clutches of the Philistines now. Is 
the North ready to act even yet ? Kansas can still be saved to 
freedom if the preposterous, malapropos Know-nothingism of the 
North does not come in to prevent, and the opponents of the ex- 
tension of slavery but exert themselves even a little. An efficient 
society should be organized and money raised to pour in a steady 
stream of emigration during the whole of next season. Kansas is 
to-day the Crimea of liberty, and if it falls, no man can tell when 
the tide of invasion will be rolled back. It should be defended 
on its own soil, and not be allowed to fall into the hands of the 
enemy, to await a tardy restoration which may never come. 
Energetic measures should be taken at once to fill Kansas with 
an early and mighty emigration, to intrench the hosts of anti- 
slavery in the field, with a determination never to surrender. If 
left to itself we do not believe it will be saved from the pollution 



1855] RIVETING THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW. 277 

of a slave constitution. It may be kept out of the Union. But 
with the lowering aspect of Know-nothingism on the horizon 
widely extended, who is sure that the Northern representation of 
succeeding Congresses can be relied on even to refuse the con- 
summation of the Nebraska iniquity ? Kansas then is to be 
saved to freedom but by the organization of a mighty emigration 
under resolute leaders, backed by abundant means. Shall it be 
done ? It is for the people of the North to answer. Let them 
be assured there is nothing doing in Congress or in Washington 
in behalf of this cause. 

J. S. P. 



SUPPLEMENTARY FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW. 
[Prom the Mtc York Tribune of February 22, 1855.] 

We wish our Nebraska friends in Congress much joy of their 
labors in tightening up the rivets of the Fugitive Slave Law, by 
means of the bill introduced on Friday last by the very honora- 
ble Mr. Toucey, of Connecticut, who, we rejoice to say, exhibits 
grace enough to be ashamed of the job he performed. 

Gentlemen, go ahead ! Put on the steam and resolve that 
the boiler shall not burst. Make just as many laws as you please 
to suppress the rising indignation of the people. The more you 
make the better. Whenever one of our Free States concludes 
not to be held in subjection to your unconstitutional edicts, we 
fancy she will not be. Gentlemen, your rage at the exhibitions 
of the people's determination to resist your iniquitous legislation 
is impotent. You cannot chain the free spirit of the North. It 
is certain to show itself, and you should be delighted to know 
that it proposes to go according to law. The North is just now 
taking lessons in Southern jurisprudence. South Carolina, 
Georgia, and little Florida have, at one time and another, dis- 
played a glorious independence of Federal legislation whenever it 
suited their purposes. We trust that, under the influence of 
such illustrious examples, the States of the North may be ex- 
cused for an occasional assertion of their notion of their own 
rights. We doubt not that it is the opinion of a large majority 
of the people of the Free States that the existing Fugitive Slave 



278 STATE COURTS TO THE RESCUE. [Feb. 

Law is unconstitutional, and their present aim is to make their 
State courts so declare it, and adhere to the declaration. We 
are a law-abiding people. But we propose to have laws fit to 
abide by and courts fit to be obeyed. 

The difficulty has always been, and now is, that our Northern 
courts derive their inspirations from a Federal slavery-upholding 
court. Our local judiciary has been poisoned by the virus of a 
national bench whereon sits a majority in the interest of the 
peculiar institution. But happily a most refreshing example of 
independence of this influence is to be seen in the late action of 
the Supreme Court of Wisconsin. The Judges of that State 
have won a lasting title to regard and admiration by their late 
decision in the case of Booth and Ryecroft, and this Congress 
will have to legislate fast and long in order to deprive them of it. 
The example which Wisconsin has set will be as rapidly fol- 
lowed as circumstances admit. By another year we expect to 
see Ohio holding the same noble course. After that we antici- 
pate a race among the other Free States in the same direction till 
all have reached the goal of State independence. By that time 
we expect to see the United States Court so constituted that all 
pre-existing conflicts will have been ended. Improper decisions 
will have been reversed, and truth and justice commence their 
sway. Such, at least, is our hope, and we have an abiding faith 
in its realization ; for such evidently seems to be the tendency 
of events, and we see no power which is likely to arrest them. 
The most offensive laws have been imposed upon the North, in 
the conviction that the Northern people were a law-enduring 
people. 

They have maintained that reputation, albeit while doing it 
they have been crowded to the very verge of civil insurrection. 
They now propose to vindicate their own rights by the same 
processes that have been set in motion to reduce them to 
subjection. And they evidently mean not only to make laws, 
but to make Judges who will honestly expound them and give 
them full effect by an intrepid discharge of their duties. This, 
we think, we plainly see, and we joyfully chronicle the cheering 
indication. Let the North but maintain its high purpose, its 
unflinching resolve that it will not submit to slave-driving dic- 
tation, whether coming through courts pledged to the support of 



1855] THE COLLINS 8TEAMER8 SUBSIDY. 279 

that institution or in whatever way it may show itself, and the 
usurpations enacted by Congress will be torn to ribbons, and its 
impudently unconstitutional laws defied. All that is wanting to 
this end is independent State courts, fearless legislatures, gov- 
ernors with backbones, and a determined people behind them. 
In looking over the elections of last year, we think we see signs 
that we have begun to get them — signs, O Toucey, Douglas & 
Co. ! that perhaps will be interpreted even to your opaque under- 
standings one of these not-distant days. As to the people of the 
Free States being enslaved by unconstitutional enactments of 
Congress, we have not the most remote apprehension of it. 
The people may be abused and dragooned up to a certain point 
with impunity — we have seen so much as this, but the inevitable 
exasperation which follows will work a cure. The medicine 
already operates. Come on, then, gentlemen, with your hated 
laws ! 



TIIOU SHALT NOT STEAL. 
[From the New York Tribune of February 25. J 

We breathe freer and deeper. The President has done a 
good deed. He has come down to Congress with the Decalogue 
in his hand and uttered the most appropriate of its ten command- 
ments to the case in hand. The Collins grant is vetoed ; corrup- 
tion is rebuked. The attempted swindle is arrested at the mo- 
ment of its triumph. We congratulate the friends of honest 
legislation everywhere. We< congratulate the senators from 
Ohio ; they, at least, have done their duty during the operation 
of this huge battering-ram at the walls of the Treasury. Their 
efforts and votes will be remembered to their honor hereafter. 
Gentlemen of the South have done well. We never expected 
to applaud the President. We do applaud him. A bold stand 
was necessary against the overwhelming surges of venality that 
broke over a debauched Congress. The President has made it. 
We thank him for what he has done, whether his action had any 
reference to the coming New Hampshire election or not. It will 
give him votes there, and lose them to the other side. But we 
don't care for that. We would not have the thing changed, let 
the consequences be what they may. 



280 RAIDS ON THE TREASURY. [Feb. 

We trust the President's .action on this case will mark a new 
era in our legislative history. "We trust it may be the beginning 
of retrenchment and reform in good earnest. Let monster 
schemes of Congressional robbery be hereafter called by their 
right names, and let the system of lobbying for and writing up 
these enormous money appropriations by ex-senators and ex- 
representatives, and outsiders of every hue and stripe, be 
branded as it deserves. We invoke the hot fires of a just public 
indignation upon the whole mercenary host. Let the atmosphere 
of Washington be purified from the taint which has hung over 
it during the past and preceding session like a moral miasm. 

We expect to hear great barking over this veto, but it will 
afford no cause for terror. It will be the growling of pups that 
have lost their bone. But they will not all howl ; some, at 
least, know better. Let us hear those who do not, begin. Some 
members of Congress grew indignant and revolutionary at the 
announcement that Mr. Pierce had plugged the golden stream. 
Revolutionize because the President recites the commandment, 
" Thou shalt not steal" ! This won't do. There are old-fash- 
ioned notions afloat that render stealing unpopular among the 
people. We know that an anti -robbery party could not do 
much at Washington, but in the country it is different. We beg 
gentlemen not to be too obstreperous till they shall go home and 
whet the dulled edge of their virtuous susceptibilities against the 
grit of the undebauched popular sentiment. What should we 
think of a fellow who had thrust his hand through the window 
of a jeweller's shop to clutch some tempting diamonds, and who, 
having it seized, inveighed lustily against the outrage upon his 
person ? 

But let us be understood. We do not say that every man 
who voted for the Collins appropriation was bought up, or that 
such is the case with those who decry the exercise of the veto 
power on this measure. We only say that enough were bought 
to carry the measure. Look at the immortal committee of nine 
that at the last session unanimously recommended the with- 
drawing of the extra appropriation for this service. Of that 
nine three were found to oppose it still at this. The other six 
voted for it the other day, or turned up missing. What wrought 
the miraculous change ? 



1855] CORRUPTION IN LEGISLATION. 281 

When a man steps forward to intercept the following of a 
righteous judgment upon a piece of gigantic official peculation, 
he cannot be allowed to take the position of an immaculate de- 
fender of a just principle. The man who defends a band of 
robbers, though he be no robber himself, has but little advantage 
of them in moral position. The Collins appropriation was caused 
by outright corruption. Let no man defend it and claim to wash 
his hands of the stain. In law fraud vitiates a contract. In 
legislation corruption should work a similiar consequence. A 
contract carried through Congress by the purchase of votes (if 
the purchase could be proved which in such cases would always 
be the great difficulty) would doubtless be held to be invalid by 
the courts. The men who were corrupted in the Collins appro- 
priation, and the agents engaged in the work of doing it, deserve 
the penitentiary. But we do not stop here. If the principle of 
law to which we refer is sound, then it is the duty of every up- 
right legislator to withhold his vote from every measure which 
he knows, or has good reason to believe, is aided by corrupt ap- 
pliances. In this way only can a stop be put to the infamous 
business of buying measures through Congress. The stigma of 
•corruption would damn any bill if the moral tone of our national 
Legislature were what it ought to be. We are not aware that 
throughout all the discussions of Congress upon the various 
schemes of robbery before it at the last and present session, any 
member has risen to declare his opposition to any bill simply on 
the ground that corruption was an element in its support. Doubt 
less many gentlemen may have felt it ought to be done, and some 
may have given votes under the promptings of such a sentiment, 
but the moral influence that such a position boldly and openly taken 
on the floor of Congress would have upon legislation we believe 
has yet to be exerted. We are quite aware that this suggestion 
may be received with an incredulous smile among members of 
Congress, and that they will innocently declare that such a rule 
w T ould incapacitate them from voting for most measures where 
appropriations are concerned. What sort of an answer this 
would be the public must judge. 

We do not know whether the corrupt practices in regard to 
legislation which have been rapidly gaining ground in Washing- 
ton have risen to a sufficient height to work their own cure. 



282 A GREAT PARTY ARISEN. [March 

The demoralization is great, but it is always long before the con- 
stituencies awake to the rascality of the representatives. The 
men at Washington can steal and plunder for long years without a 
whisper against their immaculate virtue reaching their unsuspect- 
ing supporters. We know several cherished plans of future 
political success now about culminating that would be awfully 
riddled at home if the secrets of Washington could be unveiled 
to the eyes of the uninitiated masses. We trust, however, that 
the next Congress will set its face sternly against such practices 
as have disgraced the one which was brought to a close yester- 
day. Let the infamous system of bribery and corruption that 
has signalized it, beginning with the Nebraska bill, be indignantly 
spurned by the new men who have won their way to the national 
Legislature. A radical change is necessary to save the legisla- 
tion of the country from utter loathsomeness. 



A WORD TO THE WISE. 

[From the Neio York Ti-ibune of March 7, 1855.] 

The signs of the times pre-eminently admonish the friends of 
freedom that they should be girding up their loins for future 
contests. They have every cause for encouragement, and none 
for fear. The only substantial and widespread basis for an en- 
during and successful party in the Free States is that upon which 
they rej3ose. They have the heart, the conscience, and the un- 
derstanding of the people with them. Every motive that can 
sway the action of independent, liberty-loving, moral, or religious, 
men constrains the voter to their ranks. All that is noble, all 
that is true, all that is pure, all that is manly and estimable in 
human character, goes to swell the power of the anti-slavery party 
of the North. That party is no longer the fraction, the hand- 
ful of men it once was, with designs misconceived, motives 
aspersed, and conduct decried. It now embraces every North- 
ern man who does not want to see this government converted 
into a huge engine for the spread of slavery over the whole con- 
tinent, every man who is and was opposed to the scandalous 
attempt to abridge the territory of freedom and enlarge that of 
servitude by the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill. It has 
thus a broad and firm basis, whereon every Northern public man 



1855] THE ONLY PLATFORM. 283 

should stand now, and whereon they must all stand in the future, 
or he driven into merited disgrace. 

At this moment just as the old and hitherto invincible Dem- 
ocratic organization has been destroyed by collision with the anti- 
slavery sentiment of the North, a party has arisen upon a new 
platform, with its members mainly engaged in seeing how skil- 
fully they can dodge and avoid the anti-slavery issue which 
everywhere occupies the public heart. Its chief business just 
now is to devise ways and means to escape the necessity of siding 
with or against the anti-slavery party of the North. Its utmost 
dexterity is called into exercise, and it is yet to be seen with 
what success. At this juncture we wish to call attention to the 
fact that the anti-Nebraska or anti-slavery party in the North 
hold a position which they cannot and will not abandon, and 
cannot and will not defer to any other question or platform 
whatever. They stand immovably upon the ground of resistance 
to the encroachments of slavery ; they aim at the disconnection 
of the government from its support ; they are and will be, until 
the work is accomplished, for the restoration of the prohibitory 
clause of the Missouri Compromise. The Northern anti-ne- 
braska men will insist upon this as the first condition of co-opera- 
tive action in all coming elections, as they have in the last. They 
have won everywhere on this ground, and they are not now 
going to abandon it. Any battles to be fought, or any victories 
to be won by their aid must be fought and won on this platform. 
Let all who are calculating political chances, let all who are in a 
quandary as to what combinations can be made in the North, and 
who, perchance, may be verdantly speculating upon concessions 
or suppressions by the opponents of slavery extension, not dream 
of any other or better terms than these. Upon this point all 
must be plain, open, and above-board. Our motto is, and is to 
be in the Presidential contest, as in all that succeed it, repeal 
of the law which broke down the barriers to the spread of sla- 
very, and on that position we stand or fall. The anti-Nebraska 
men will not be cajoled into the support of any presidential or 
other candidate who hesitates on this question. Their candidate 
for the Presidency must stand squarely on it. Let all, whether 
they know nothing or know something, know so much as this, 
and govern themselves accordingly. 



28-t COUNTRY CAN BE CARRIED. [March 

The country can be triumphantly swept upon this issue, 
leaving not a remnant of the Nebrascal policy or forces anywhere 
standing. And it is the only existing public issue upon which a 
triumphant majority, or any majority at all, can be to-day obtained 
in the United States. Any party that attempts to carry the 
country upon a platform less broad than this will find itself met 
by an opposition fatal to its success. Attempts may be made, 
and be partially successful, to succeed, here and there, on other 
grounds. But the final result will be scrub-races all over the 
country, the representatives of the smallest minorities in senti- 
ment often finding their way into power. Instead of fighting 
one great battle, as may be done with a compact and overwhelm- 
ing force, strong enough to crush all adversaries and to inaugurate 
an era of peace, harmony, and justice, ending in the absolute 
settlement of the slavery question, so far as the general govern- 
ment is concerned, we shall witness an infinite number of politi- 
cal skirmishes, sometimes resulting in favor of one party, and 
sometimes in favor of another — the aggregate results of which 
will be just nothing at all. The time consumed in such strug- 
gles will, in the end, be found to have been wholly thrown away, 
and the broken fragments of all sides will still have to be gathered 
on the one point where all are agreed, and the contest again 
opened and pressed to its solution. It is the interest of the 
Nebraska men in the North to foment discord among the friends 
of freedom and keep up divisions among them. In this and 
this alone is their only hope even of partial success. Shall the 
opponents of their great iniquity gratify them ? 

We submit these considerations to the anti-Nebraska men of 
all sides, and ask for them a thoughtful and candid consideration. 
The movements of individuals and parties, in reference to the 
Presidency, seem to render their expression particularly necessary 
at this time. We are deeply solicitous that the present high and 
commanding position of the anti-Nebraska men — holding as they 
do to-day the power to control the government — shall not be 
lightly thrown away or weakened. We deprecate a scrub-race 
for the Presidency, as breaking the force of the anti-Nebraska 
movement, and prolonging a contest which can now be speedily 
ended and brought to a beneficent termination by the majesty of 
overwhelming numbers, carrying with it a moral force that shall 



1855] THE DIPLOMATIC BRIGAND. 285 

silence and destroy all opposition. But this scrub-race, wherein 
nothing is certain, must come, if the restoration of the prohib- 
itory clause of the Missouri Compromise is not made the central, 
idea of the presidential contest. This issue is tangible and per- 
manent. It will be sustained by a vast majority, while all others 
are comparatively vague and transient, and their strength uncer- 
tain. We believe that a very large portion of the South itself 
would be found ready to go with the North on this ground, if 
all the men who really hold to it would rally with ardor to its 
support and make it the sine qua non of their co-operation in any 
national movement. Let us hope that the good sense of the 
country will prevail through all party organizations, and that 
the Northern people will illustrate their intelligence and stability 
by steadfastly adhering to the position they so nobly won in the 
elections of 1854. 



MANIFESTO OF THE BRIGANDS. 

[From the New York Tribune of March 7.] 

At the advent of every new Administration we send all over 
the world a batch of gentlemen of all qualities accredited to the 
various Powers that bear sway therein, as the diplomatic repre- 
sentatives of the American people. 

Now and then a stir is made among this body of men which 
relieves the general monotony of their inaction. Such a case has 
recently occurred in Europe. It seems that certain individuals 
on this side the great water, moved thereto by general loaferish- 
ness of habit, both of body and mind, and backed by that inor- 
dinate desire to extend the area and power of slavery which pre- 
vails in the negro States and among doughfaces in the North, 
conceived the design of making another desperate effort to rob 
Spain of the island of Cuba. This highly interesting and vir- 
tuous class of gentlemen, on the accession of President Pierce, 
insisted on having a personage sent to the Court of Madrid as 
Minister, who should represent their peculiar views and aims. 
This personage was appointed, and his name was Pierre Soule. 
As the nation had no other plundering job on hand, the attention 
of the fillibustering part of our population has been very generally 
attracted to Mr. Soule's doings. If any of the rest of our 



286 SOUL&, MASON, AND BUCHANAN. [March 

diplomats went out of the country to do nothing, this cannot be 
said of the Minister to Spain. He went to get Cuba. It was. 
known and acknowledged and advertised on all hands that this 
was his peculiar business. It was a modest task — an amiable, 
friendly, and gracious enterprise. All Mr. Soule wanted of the 
government to which he was sent, was that it should consent to 
part with its most valuable colonial possession. Spain was sim- 
ply asked to surrender not only the most precious jewel, but 
about the only jewel in her crown. The friendly request, we 
doubt not, was delivered with a theatrical grace intended to ex- 
hibit to that power the immense complacency and delight the 
United States would manifest in case the proposal were acceded 
to, and at the same time the terrific consequences of her failing 
to succumb to the wishes of our very demonstrative diplomat. 
The reason why any gentleman appearing at the Court of Madrid, 
clothed with the functions of an American plenipotentiary, and 
advancing this impudent proposition, was not summarily ejected, 
after the exceeding distaste that Spain had manifested for the 
alienation of Cuba under any circumstances, must be set down 
to the very great good nature of the Spanish government. If a 
man calls upon you in your parlor and insists upon having your 
chandelier or your carpet, because he is highly pleased with the 
pattern of those articles, it would seem to be quite enough for 
you to tell him that you decline the transaction. If he persists, 
you have nothing to do but to kick him out. 

Mr. Soule pressed for what he wanted in every conceivable 
way, but Spain very obdurately declined to be robbed. At 
length our charming highway diplomat, finding that the Queen 
of the Antilles could not be obtained either by soft saw- 
der or by holding a pistol to the head of her keeper, sullenly 
turned away to bethink himself of some other plan to accomplish 
his object. At his instance, we presume — at any rate while he 
was dubiously ruminating over his baffled hopes — our Secretary 
of Foreign Affairs wrote him a letter advising him to confer 
with the other members of our diplomatic corps in Europe — 
Mr. Mason and Mr. Buchanan — for the purpose of seeing what 
their joint labors might effect. Neither of these gentlemen hav- 
ing any pet job of plunder on hand, it seemed to be supposed 
they would have no objection to hitch teams with Soule and help 



1855] THE OSTEND CONFERENCE. 287 

him up the hill of his difficulties. Accordingly, the three met 
together at a town in Belgium called Ostend, and afterward at 
Aix-la-Chapelle, in Prussia. There they fraternized and con- 
cocted the document which we publish in another part of this 
morning's paper. 

This manifesto is ostensibly addressed to " Wm. L. Marcy, 
Secretary of State. " It is really addressed to the fears and cu- 
pidity of the Spanish government. It was written for the lati- 
tude and longitude of Madrid, and carefully calculated for the 
meridian of London and Paris. A copy thereof was unquestion- 
ably in Mr. Soule's pocket when Louis Napoleon's understrapper 
snubbed him at Calais, and sent him back to London. This 
copy, we doubt not, was duly laid before the Spanish govern- 
ment on Mr. Soule's final return to Madrid, with every accessory 
of diplomatic and dramatic effect which that eminent artist could 
summon to his service. Mr. Buchanan, of course, took another 
copy with him to lay before her Britannic Majesty's ministers in 
London. Mr. Mason, without doubt, likewise took a transcript 
of this portentous missile, and held it up to the startled gaze of 
the modern Napoleon. Thus was brought up to a proper eleva- 
tion, loaded and discharged, this diplomatic Lancaster gun of the 
illustrious triumvirate, its balls whistling and rattling about the 
heads of three principal European Courts, while our Adminis- 
tration at home was diligently engaged in repudiating the whole 
business. How the affair was treated by the government, under 
the secrec} r of its diplomatic seal, may be seen by Secretary 
Marcy's reply to the Ostend Manifesto, which reached us by 
telegraph last night and is printed herewith. 

The reasons set forth by Messrs. Buchanan, Mason, and Soule 
for proceeding, in case Spain refuses to sell Cuba, to wrest the 
island from her by force, are those which would justify any act 
of national robbery whatever. These gentlemen more than inti- 
mate that the possession of Cuba by Spain endangers our " cher- 
ished Union." Yes, the Union is in danger because Spain holds 
Cuba ! We did think the disunion bugbear was intended wholly 
for home consumption, but it seems not. It is, like Brandreth's 
Pills, or Town send' s Sarsaparilla, alike useful in every disorder. 
We know that if we want a Wilmot Proviso we cannot have it, 
because it would endanger the Union ; that if we refuse to set 



288 CUBA OR DISSOLVE THE UNION. [March 

bloodhounds on the track of a flying negro, we are endangering 
the Union ; that if we oppose the further spread of slaveiw we 
are endangering the Union ; that if we do not stop discussing 
the subject of African bondage, and doing forty other things, we 
endanger the Union ; but, till now, we did not know, nor did we 
dream, that if Spain would not let us have Cuba, the Union 
was to be dissolved. But so it is. 

If Spain will not sell us Cuba, we must steal it in order to 
preserve our national existence ! Such is the proposition of these 
diplomatic sages ; and we confess that, in all our experience of 
political absurdities, we recall nothing equal to it. We trust the 
renowned Soule, the only one of the sheared triad who has got 
home from his search for wool, will lose no time in ascending the 
rostrum and demonstrating the position that the Union is in dan- 
ger if we do not get Cuba. Let us know, we pray, who will 
dissolve the Union if we don't get Cuba ; who threatens to dis- 
solve the Union if we don't get Cuba ; and also on what day the 
Union will be dissolved if we do not get Cuba. We are all im- 
patience to know in what quarter of the heavens the impending 
danger hovers, and when we may exjDect it to burst on our de- 
voted heads. And while the honorable Mr. Soule is about this 
duty, we also beg him to explain the grave inconsistency in 
which he has been involved by this manifesto. Before he went 
to Spain he declared in one public speech, if not in two or three, 
that Spain would not sell Cuba, and that it was idle for us to 
think of such a thing. He enlarged upon that Castilian pride 
of character which forbade the hope of our succeeding in nego- 
tiating for the island upon any such basis. But lo ! here, in 
this manifesto, he is insisting that she should and must sell it to 
us ! O agile Soule ! changing positions and eating his own 
words with a celerity that rivals Falstaff. 

By a singular blunder of the copyist, who, it seems was or- 
dered not to disclose the sum proffered for Cuba, it turns out 
that it was one hundred and twenty millions of dollars. An en- 
ormous sum to be given to Spain for the simple purpose of pre- 
venting emancipation and precluding freedom in that island. 
There is no doubt that this bold push in the interest of slavery, 
so far as our Minister to London is concerned, is bottomed on 
the same atrocious foundation with the Nebraska bill. It was 



1855] THE WOLF'S DIALECTICS. 289 

with him a presidential job. The real reasons that induced the 
Administration to reject it are probably twofold : because the 
political hurricane which was sweeping over the country while it 
was being concocted alarmed them into a sudden tit of anti-an- 
nexation as respects Catholic and negro territory ; and secondly, 
because they had no objection to oversetting the Cuba coach in 
which Mr. Buchanan was so evidently steering for the White 
House. 

The reasoning of this buccaneering document, that Cuba in 
the possession of Spain endangers our national safety, is sheer 
vapor. The fathers of the Republic discovered no such peril. 
It was not found out during the war of the Revolution, or that 
of 1812, or that of 1846. John Quincy Adams, when Secretary 
of State, speaks of our commanding the Gulf ; but Andrew 
Jackson, bellicose and fearless, let Cuba alone. The whole 
argument, then, of Cuba imperilling our safety is a fiction. It 
is utterly without foundation. Take away the rabble, who are 
too lazy to work, and wish to grow rich by plunder, whencesoever 
it may come, whether in domestic jobbing or the invasion of 
foreign territory, and there is not a man in the country who 
believes the wretched pretence that the Ostend Conference has 
put forth. Buchanan himself does not believe it. Mason even 
does not believe it. Soule we do not consider sane where his 
vanity comes into play ; and that induced him to go upon this 
Quixotic expedition, as arrant a farce, indeed, as any recorded in 
the adventures of the hero of La Mancha. But that honest crack- 
brain never matched the atrocities which our fillibuster champion 
coolly proposes. Spain will not be cajoled or bullied into selling 
what belongs to her, and thereupon Soule tells us she must be 
robbed and murdered. To this have we come ! Even the sol- 
emn, measured, old-fashioned Buchanan condescends to sing 
such a penitentiary tune — the ribaldry of robbers and cut-throats 
rhetoricized into formal phraseology. We want to buy, say 
they ; Spain does not wish to sell : why, then, we will take the 
goods and murder the owner. Apply this to the mine and 
thine of individual intercourse, and who is owner of liis house, 
his land, his coat, his shirt ? The wolf's dialectics settles all dis- 
putes. 

In this doctrine we see the brutalizing march of slavery. 



290 MORAL BRIGANDAGE. March 

The sense of honor and justice under its banners becomes each 
year more indurated. The strong necessity of keeping millions 
in bondage, and of upholding the merits of the revolting 
institution, incite the democracy of whips, chains, and blood- 
hounds to advance more and more on the same career which 
made Rome howl. To grasp, to rob, to murder, to grow rich 
on the spoils of provinces and the toils of slaves — these all are as 
completely the phenomena of Southern oligarchy as they were 
of Roman imperialism. They are but changed in name. De- 
mocracy is a mere gauze which does not cloak the hideous figure. 
There is not a man who was, is, or hopes to be engaged in filli- 
bustering, actual or sympathetic, who does not look to the par- 
tition of lands and the confiscation of chattels for his reward. 
Spain was thus partitioned by Napoleon for his brigand generals 
before the invasion ; and the disastrous filibustering expedition 
which ended in the wholesale garotting of Lopez and his follow- 
ers was marked by the same phenomena. Something is claimed 
for nothing. The filibusters, high and low, fixed and vagrant, 
fighting and diplomatic, all expect their reward. Cuba an- 
nexed, and the slave-trade once more legalized, and then the 
Union — what length of purchase would it be worth ? 



THE BUCCANEERING EMBASSY. 

[Prom the Neic York Tribune of March 9.] 

The longer the reader reflects upon the developments of the 
Ostend Conference, the more pitiable and laughable it will ap- 
pear — pitiable, that three grown men, the representatives of the 
United States at three of the principal courts in Europe, could, 
in the face of those courts and of all the world (for theirs was 
no job done in a corner to be hidden from sight), have put forth 
a manifesto, at the morality of which all honest men will stand 
aghast, and at whose urgent tone of robbery and war all Chris- 
tendom will be confounded; — laughable, from the fact that the 
missile blows nobody to pieces but its authors, whose remains it 
scatters to the winds. So far as we can observe, nobody, any- 
where, conies to the defence of this stupendous piece of moral 
brigandage* Every one seems in haste to utter condemnation 



1855] THE WOES OF SOULE. 291 

and cast ridicule upon the miserable abortion of the Ostend tri- 
umvirate. It will, of itself, do much toward precipitating our 
diplomatic service into contempt, and bring disgrace upon the 
administration of Pierce and Marcy. So far as the exposure 
subserves this purpose, we look upon it with complacency. We 
hardly feel willing to go so far as a Democratic contemporary of 
this city, which declares that the whole proceeding was but a 
pit dug by Marcy in which to entrap and bury Buchanan and 
Soule. We know full well that political schemes have been at 
the bottom of the chief acts of the Administration at Washing- 
ton, but we could not have conceived this Cuba plot was mainly 
started to kill off these troublesome gentlemen. 

We long to hear Soule take up the burden of his complaints. 
They say he is as fully charged as was ever a nightingale with 
melody, and designs to pour his song into the listening ear of the 
great American people. It will be tragico-comic to a swelling 
degree. Over the tale of his discomfiture and his woes we are 
sure his listeners, when they can forget their indignation at his 
morality, will be convulsed with merriment. Let him, by all 
means, choose Burton's Theatre for the display of his griefs — 
that appropriate home of the comic drama where Sleek is wont 
to groan and Jim Baggs to disconsolately sing. We will guar- 
antee a crowded audience, lachrymal to any extent he requires, 
if he will only consent that they shall smile through their tears 
and laugh in their sleeve. Let him, appearing in his embroid • 
ered velvet coat, tell how he has been seduced, inveigled, and 
ruined. Let him read over the immensely grotesque letters 
which we dare say fill his budget. The audience impatiently 
waits. Will Mr. Soule begin ? The letter we print this morning 
would be an excellent paper with which to open the play. If 
he could infuse into his own action on the stage the activity and 
fussiness, the querulous petulance, the minimum squeak of 
diplomacy, the clear little quiddling contrivance, and the mock 
majesty of truculent pretension which that letter displays, his 
success would be prodigious. 

We have always laughed at the idea of Mr. Soule's accom- 
plishing any thing as a diplomatist. We were not, however, 
prepared for quite so much vitriol and cantharides as apparently 
characterizes his diplomatic practice. We supposed he had, here 



292 SHIPWRECK IN NEW HAMPSHIRE. [March 

and there, a vial of demulcent anodyne to soothe the worst of 
his irritations. But not so. He attacks his patient by acids and 
alkalies the most potent. He roasts him in sulphur and wonders 
that he should be uneasy. He bastes him with nitrate, and 
thrusts red-hot pokers into his vitals, and then rushes to paper, 
and declares to Mr. Marcy that he is astonished and indignant at 
the restlessness and resistance of his subject. 

If we could wonder at any thing Mr. Soule does, or has done, 
we should say we are surprised at the intensity of his headlong 
proceedings after reading the abundant cautions contained in Mr. 
Marcy's original letter of instructions to him. In that the 
shrewd Secretary says, as plainly as he can without using the 
very words : " Mr. Soule, I have very little confidence in your 
discretion or wisdom, and I do beg of you to mind what you are 
about, and not make a fool of yourself. Spain does not want to 
sell Cuba, as she has shown in a thousand ways, and don't you 
be running a muck in proposing to buy it. ' ' This is the spirit 
of the whole dispatch, and after such a caution one might pre- 
sume that Mr. Soule would have exhibited at least a little pru- 
dence. That he did not, the one dispatch of his that we publish 
abundantly shows. The real truth, as we stated yesterday, un- 
doubtedly is, that Buchanan and Soule mounted their Cuba 
Rosinante on their own hook, emulous of the bold stroke of 
Pierce and Marcy on Nebraska, and went in to win. Their race 
illustrates the old adage — Put a beggar on horseback and he will 
ride to the devil. 



SHIPWRECK IN NEW HAMPSHIRE. 

[From the New York Tribune of March 22.] 

Our dispatches from New Hampshire proclaim the triumph- 
ant success of the combined forces of the Whigs, Freesoilers, 
Know-nothings, and anti-Nebraska Democrats, over the Pierce 
Nebraska party of that State. It will be seen that the Whig and 
Preesoil parties made no attempt to sustain their candidates, 
who, although regularly in nomination, received only the sup- 
port of a small handful of voters. The fusion against the Ne- 
braskaites was complete, and the rout is as complete as was the 
combination. The last stronghold of the Sham Democracy has 



1855] KITTREDGE AND MORRISON. 293 

thus been utterly overthrown. The elements of opposition which 
the traitorous conduct and policy of the National Administration 
called into being have been merged in New Hampshire as in 
Maine, and the result is the total discomfiture of the hitherto in- 
vincible Democratic party of that State. New Hampshire has 
for the first time gone over to the opposition. It is a memorable 
event in the history of New England politics. Whatever may 
be pretended, this overwhelming victory is mainly owing to the 
aversion of the masses to the course of the Administration on the 
Nebraska bill. The popular disgust was everywhere excited ; 
and, under cover of a new organization, much of it has mani- 
fested itself that would never otherwise have been fully felt in 
the election. Yet, without any other issue than simple anti-Ne- 
braska the rout of the Administration in its stronghold in the 
North would hardly have been less complete. The great and 
damning sin which has prostrated it was the iniquity hatched by 
Atchison, Douglas, Pierce, and their agents and abettors. This 
is the weight that has pulled it down. Its little merits, like the 
veto of the Collins line, for example, have been as nothing in 
the scale against the crowning infamy which it attempted to es- 
tablish and canonize in the Democratic ranks. 

In this struggle, as in that in Massachusetts, the good have 
fallen with the bad. Anti-Nebraska men who were without 
the lines of the reforming host have been crushed by its stride. 
Kittredge and Morrison, both anti-Nebraska men, and resolute in 
opposition, have lost their seats because they were burdened with 
Administration nominations and Administration support. They 
have suffered from being found in bad company. 

This election discloses what the elections elsewhere in the 
North demonstrate, that the old Democratic party is reduced to 
a skeleton, and can nowhere stand against the opposition, if the 
elements of that opposition will combine. This party, so long 
invincible through the charm of its name and the drill of its or- 
ganization, is stripped of its power and trembles upon the verge 
of dissolution. If the opposition will only be wise, it has the 
power to extinguish it at a blow. The great traitorous combina- 
tion which, in the name of Democracy, has dared to strike a 
parricidal blow at the cause of freedom and progress on this con- 
tinent, may itself be cloven down in the act. It is a time when 



294 LETTER FROM S. P. CHASE. [May 

minor differences should be forgotten, and when all should 
unite to complete the overthrow of those arch -traitors who, pro- 
fessing in their own language to believe this to be a " nigger 
era," have instituted their atrocious experiment upon the public 
credulity and the public sense of right. 



TFrom Salmon P. Chase.] 

Cincinnati, March 22, 1855. 

My Dear Sir : I inclose you my speech on the Collins steamers, 
and a paragraph from the Cincinnati Gazette in relation to it. Of 
coarse I don't expect you to print any thing now so old, but it may be 
of some interest to you from the facts it exhibits and furnish material 
for a paragraph. 

There is a good deal of confusion here about fusion. The Know- 
nothings are rather inclined to dictate terms to the outsiders, and there 
may be a split among the anti-Administration forces. The Independent 
Democrats are willing to co-operate with the Know-nothings upon a 
fair common ticket in which both sides shall be fairly represented as to 
men, and on a platform of no more Slave States and no Slave Territory. 
But they insist that the ticket shall be nominated by a People's Conven- 
tion fairly constituted. The Know-nothings on the other hand, want 
to have the exclusive selection of the ticket, leaving to a People's Con- 
vention no function, but that of ratification. The issue is uncertain. 
Yours faithfully, S. P. Chase. 

J. S. Pike, Esq. 



[From Count Gurowski.] 

Friday, May G, 1855. 
Most Honorable P-i-k-e : I am going away to-morrow, to 
refresh and strengthen my infamous body. Sorry not to shake hands 
with you. You will find by the last news from Europe how great a 
man you are in American politics, as concerns Europe. Vous-etes tant 
soit peu un dne. Do not blush ; it does not matter. JVon omnia 
possumus omnes. War, war, war, to the knife ! and victory with the 
slaves, with Russia ! Yours faithfully, Gurowski. 



1855] LETTER FROM MRS. GOVERNOR DAVIS. 295 

[From Mrs. Governor Davis.] 

Worcester, June 10, 1855. 

My Dear Mr. Pike : I had a note from Theodore Parker in which 
he says, " Mr. Pike learned from you that Mr. Webster wrote one of 
the papers; ..." and he (Mr. Parker) asks me to point it out to 
him. Now I am obliged to confess to having lost a recollection of this 
fact, or at least it is very dim, and I confess it with pain. I have 
often thought during the last year that my mind had received a shock 
from which perhaps I should never recover, and this convinces me that 
it is in part true ; for I believe in the exactness of your memory and see 
here a proof that I am indeed shattered. I tell Mr. Parker T will ask 
you to refresh my memory, and, by awakening old associations, perhaps 
I may revive the whole thing. As it is, with my imperfect recollections 
on the subject, I should not dare to say positively any thing about it. 
You must excuse me for troubling you ; I know how valuable your 
time is. Nevertheless I must ask you to write me, when you can con- 
veniently, what you remember about it. 

When you pass, as I suppose you occasionally do, from Gotham to 
the pure air of Maine, please make a little leisure to visit me. 

I owe you many kind thoughts for the beautiful eulogy upon Mr. 
Davis. It is so discriminating, so truthful, that I feel as if they were 
the words of a friend who comprehended, as few could do, the beautiful 
simplicity, purity, and dignity of his character. Each time I read it I 
have the same emotions, and wonder how any body but myself could 
have known him so well. . . . 

With sincere friendship, E. Davis. 



[From Salmon P. Chase. 

Cincinnati, June 20, 1855. 

My Dear Pike : So you are married ! I never heard of it until a 
day or two since. I am very sorry to be obliged to mingle with my 
congratulations on your marriage my unfeigned sympathies with your 
noble wife in her bereavement. Beg her to accept both my congratula- 
tions and my sympathies and let her be assured that they come from one 
of the sincerest of her friends. 

It is possible that I may get a chance for a run eastward this sum- 
mer, and I should like exceedingly to see you both. Where are you 
to be ? Can you not contrive to join the Baileys at the Flume House 
for the month of July at least ? If so, I feel pretty sure of seeing you. 



296 LETTER FROM CHARLES A. DANA. [July 

Since the explosion at Philadelphia and the action at Cleveland both 
of the Know-somethings and the Know-nothings, the political atmos- 
phere has cleared somewhat. The prospect now seems to be that I shall 
receive the nomination of the 1 3th of July Convention, and that every 
thing will go harmoniously. Know-nothingism will, I think, gracefully 
give itself up to die. If not, it will be forced to take the Philadelphia 
fij;, which will be quite as well for us. If you see the Cincinnati Com- 
mercial, you will see in a brief paragraph this morning some evidence of 
the change in sentiment. 

When you intimated in our conversations at New York that I might 
possibly be the anti-Nebraska candidate for President in 1856, it seemed 
to me next to impossible. It still seems to me impossible ; but since 
then the evidences have convinced me that there is a strong sentiment 
that way in the West, and a respectable backing of it in the East. It is 
not likely that any thing will come out of it, and I certainly shall give 
myself no uneasiness on account of it. But I have sent the Commercial 
article to Bailey, and asked him if he cannot induce George Washington 
Frost Mellen to decline in my favor ! 

I direct this to New York at a venture, and hope it may find you 
there ; but I inclose it in an envelope to the Tribune office, that it may 
be forwarded in case you should be out of the city. 

Pray write me soon, or ask — how shall I call her ? — to do so. I sup- 
pose, now she is married, it will be all proper enough. Give her my 
best — regards. Yours faithfully, S. P. Chase. 



[From Charles A. Dana.] 

New York, Sunday, July 14. 

Dear Pike : You see my promptitude equals yours. You write, 
and I pay with equal exactness. But while domestic happiness causes 
us both to neglect these mere external passing duties I don't know 
who has a right to complain. The truth is, I have been busy going to 
Westport to see my children — driving them about in old Bradley's one- 
horse wagon, rowing and sailing with them on the bay and Sound, 
gathering shells on the shore with them, picking cherries, lounging on 
the grass, gazing into the sky with the whole tribe about me ! Who'd 
think of paying notes under such circumstances ? 

There's no delight like that in a pack of young children — of your 
own. Love is selfish, friendship is exacting, but this other affection 
gives all and asks nothing. The man who hasn't half a dozen young 
children about him must have a very mean conception of life. Besides, 



1855] LETTERS FROM CHARLES A. DANA. 297 

there ought always to be a baby in every house. A house without a 
baby is inhuman. 

Sucb are my sentiments. 

It's mighty easy for you to compliment the Tribune. Of course it's 
better than ever, and no thanks to you. I knew a lazy loafer, and a 
bridegroom to boot, would never write any thing, and made my arrange- 
ments accordingly, though I said nothing to you about it. The occasion 
was too good a one to show whether you had a conscience or not, or any 
regard for your word. 

Don't think you are going to Washington this winter. Greeley has 
engaged that place before you. I just had a letter from him. He will 
be home about September 1st. He says Chase will be beaten if he is 
nominated. It seems to me he is mistaken. However, we'll see. I 
take it Chase is now pretty sure of the nomination. It would be an 
awful business for us if the anti-Nebraska party should break down on 
his account. 

I'm charmed with that picture of Mrs. P paddling a bark 

-canoe, which you draw in such idyllic colors. I suspect the poetic is 
your true vein after all — next to theology. But what I really hope you 
are doing is the discipline of that stubborn obstinacy and wilfulness of 
yours into something like Christian meekness and domestic submission. 
Remember it's your duty, and do it with some grace. 

Bayard Taylor is going to Japan as United States Commissioner — if 
he gets the appointment. Perry puts him up to trying for it, and tells 
him there is no doubt of his having it, as the Administration do not 
desire to make a political business of it, and he is the best man for the 
place who could possibly be found. Don't mention the scheme, as 
Bayard wouldn't like it known if he is disappointed. 

Good-by, old fellow, and send me word a week before you write 
another article, so that I can prepare for it. C. A. D. 



[From Charles A. Dana.] 

Thursday, August 23, 1855. 
Dear Pike : . . . Fry is at Nahant, cursing the angularity and 
inhospitality of the Bostonians. From the Count I have not had a word 
these many days. Bayard is to pay you a visit on his return from New- 
foundland. Andrews is here, with Banks under his wing. I inclose a 
circular of the Boston Chamber of Commerce which will amuse you. 
Israel thinks he will get $15,000 to $20,000 — enough, he says, to pay 
his debts. 



298 LETTERS FROM CHARLES A. DANA. [Oct. 

Banks and Lew Campbell are up for Speaker, but they are without a 
chance. Israel Washburn is as good a man as I know of, and I have 
electioneered for him a little. If Amos P. Granger , of Syracuse, had 
been in the House before, he would be the man of all others. The Ohio 
men say they will vote for Giddings sooner than for Campbell. 

The chances are improving constantly in this State. The Know- 
nothings, thank God, are in their graves. What a short life they had 
of it ! Yours ever, C. A. Dana. 



New York, Saturday, September 15. 

My Dear Pike : I have long had in my pocket a letter of yours to- 
be answered, but haven't had the time to indulge myself in such a 
pleasure. 

In the first place, then, you've made a pretty business of it in Maine. 
I expected it though, for I don't think your party can ever carry an 
election any more than the ship could get into Tarshish with Jonah on 
board. For good reason it was that the Whig candidate for Congress 
in the Sixth District of Maine was so shamefully defeated in the year 
1850. I have no doubt if you had gone to Canada or the West Indies 
in 1852 General Scott would have been President. 

As for the West Indies, there's no particular use in going there 
unless you can speak French and Spanish, for without those languages you 
can't well study the niggers in either the French or Spanish islands. As 

for writers, there is still nobody better than old Bryan Edwards. B 's 

book isn't worth a cent as a guide to forming an opinion. On all 
that subject a great deal of light was cast by some four or five articles of 
the Tribune last spring, and you had better begin your studies by find- 
ing and reading those articles, as you ought to have done when they were 
published. They were called out by some letters from Cuba, Jamaica, 
and Hayti by a German savan who wrote correspondence for us. He 
took the usual view of Jamaica, for instance, as ruined by emancipation 
quite overlooking the fact that the island never had any prosperity 
except as a depot for smuggling, piracy, and the slave-trade, and was as- 
much ruined fifty years ago as now. 

Yours, C. A. D. 



[From Governor Chase.] 

Cincinnati, October 18, 1855. 
My Dear Sir : I d on't certainly know whether I ever replied to 
your letter from Calais last June ; I do know that it was my deliberate 



1855] LETTER FROM GOVERNOR CHASE. 299 

purpose to reply to it in propria, persona, but that I found to my great 
disappointment when I reached New Hampshire that my time was too 
limited to permit the execution of my purpose. And as to the reply by 
letter, take it now as payment of principal if I have not written before, 
and if I have, for payment of interest. 

We have had a hard political battle to fight in this State. Every 
kind of epithet has been employed against me. The Administration men 
denouncing me for association with Know-nothings, combined shame- 
lessly with the proscriptive and pro-slavery wing of the order to defeat 
me. These last denounced me because I would not consent to proscrip- 
tion. And so it went. I fought my way as best I might. I spoke in 
forty-nine counties, and at fifty-seven different places. And I had some 
gallant helpers. Among them it is not invidious to name Lewis D. 
Campbell as the one, not immediately interested in the result, who did 
most service. He would speak too much, I thought, of Americanism ; 
but he thought sound policy required it, and certain it is that he was 
unwearied in labor and effective in action. At last our fight is over and 
our victory is won. My majority is about sixteen thousand — enough 
for all practical purposes, and a sure guarantee that Ohio will hereafter 
be found on the right side. 

You will have noticed that some of our papers were not well pleased 
with the apparent concession of the Tribune that I might be defeated ; 
or with the article since the election saying that had another man been 
nominated the result would have been a more decisive anti-Nebraska 
victory. I am not, of course, a good judge in this case ; but I feel 
very sure that no other man could have carried the State at all under 
existing circumstances. I may not have, and indeed I know I have 
not, much of b'hoy popularity ; but I have what I think is better, the 
confidence of the people ; and if any doubter whether or not I have the 
truest and most earnest body of friends that almost any man ever had in 
his State had attended our 13th July Convention he would, I think, have 
been convinced. I presume Mr. Greeley wrote the articles I refer to, 
and I doubt not they were written with the best intentions. But I may 
be allowed to doubt the policy of printing them. We want now cor- 
dial union among all the friends of the Party of Freedom. Nothing less 
will insure a victory in 1856. 

Please write me your views frankly as to the future. You may rely 
on my discretion. What is the prospect in New York ? what in 
Pennsylvania and New Jersey ? I learn that Hamilton Fish is out of 
the movement. Is it so ? 

Give my best love (if you demur to that put in some other word) to 



300 LETTER FROM SENATOR SUMNER. [Nov. 1855 

jour wife, whom I set down at the head of my list of most valued 
friends ; remember me with great regard to Mr. Greeley and Mr. Dana, 
and believe me, Yours cordially, S. P. Chase. 



[From Charles Sumner.] 

Boston, November 5, 1855. 

My Dear Sir : I had supposed you still in the Tribune ; but was 
glad to hear from you. 

If you do go to the British "West Indies, I trust you will write a 
book to clinch the question of emancipation, which you can do. 

Besides the books which you mention, I would refer to Thorne and 
Kimball's " Six Months' Tour in Antigua, Barbadoes, and Jamaica," 
published in New York, 1838 ; also a London volume entitled " The 
Jamaica Movement for Promoting the Enforcement of the Slave-Trade 
Treaty," etc., printed in 1850 by Charles Gilpin for gratuitous distri- 
bution ; also to a recent London work (1854) entitled " The West Indies 
before and since Slave Emancipation," etc., by John Davy. 

I inclose a couple of letters of introduction. Mr. Hincks is Governor 
of Barbadoes. Mr. Mackintosh, the son of Sir James, is of Antigua ; 
but I fear that he is about giving up his place. 

Bon voyage ! Ever faithfully yours, Charles Sumner. 



Jan. 1856] PIERCE ON KANSAS. 301 



1856. 



THE PRESIDENT AND KANSAS. 
[From the New York Tribune of January, 1856.] 

The first point that an honest man would look for in the 
President's late Message is the suggestion of some means of 
protecting the citizens of Kansas against the inroads of the 
border ruffians at their elections. As things now stand every 
election is an outrage and a fraud. How shall Kansas be pro- 
tected against such violence is the great question. On this 
vital subject what says the New Hampshire attorney who occu- 
pies the presidential chair ? We subjoin every word that the 
Message contains upon it. As to enforcing the tyrannous and 
sanguinary code of the ruffians, it is perfectly open, clear, nim- 
ble, and explicit. But if the armed Missourians rush in and 
mob the citizens, take possession of the ballot-boxes and carry 
the elections just to suit themselves, the following is all that Mr. 
Pierce has to say about it : 

" If the Territory be invaded by citizens of other States, whether for 
the purpose of deciding elections or for any other, and the local authorities 
find themselves unable to repel or withstand it, they will be entitled to, 
and upon the fact being fully ascertained, they shall most certainly receive 
the aid of the General Government. ' ' 

The President here tells us that if the " local authorities" 
call for help he will come. Excellent man ! The " local au- 
thorities" already installed are the pet agents of the border 
ruffians, appointed by them and obedient to them. What occa- 
sion have they to call for help ? They are the very villains 
against whom the people of Kansas are struggling. But what 



302 GOVERNOR CHASE ON KANSAS. [Jan. 

does the President say about helping the people — what about 
securing fair play to the legal voters and excluding the armed 
and swaggering interlopers ? Not one single word ! Under his 
Message the real citizens of Kansas stand just where they stood 
when Whitfield was elected ; just where they stood when the 
bogus border ruffian Legislature was imposed upon them. What 
does the President mean by this ? Does he mean to say he has 
no power in the premises, or does he really mean to enslave 
Kansas if he can ? He is undoubtedly ready for the latter, or 
for any thing, if it will enable him to compass a nomination at 
Cincinnati. 

The cause of freedom in Kansas has no longer any hope from 
any source but the stalwart arms and sure rifles of the people of 
the Free States. Let them not be wanting ! 



GOVERNOR CHASE ON KANSAS. 
[Prom the New York Tribune of January, 1856.] 

We welcome to our columns in another part of to-day's paper 
a Special Message of Governor Chase to the Legislature of Ohio 
on the affairs of Kansas. It is a lucid and able resume of the 
political history of Kansas, which will commend itself to every 
reader who sympathizes with the struggling people of that Terri- 
tory. But more than this, it is a hopeful sign of the times. It 
shows that the cause of freedom is hourly gaining. Governor 
Chase comes boldly out at an opportune moment, and shows 
himself ready to resist the encroachments of slavery in the name 
and behalf of the great State of Ohio. 

This fact is deeply significant. If the President of the 
United States has flung himself into the scale against freedom in 
Kansas, Governor Chase — with the powerful State of Ohio at 
his back — appears as a champion on the other side. This event, 
like the famous Virginia Message of Governor Seward, forms an 
era in our political history. Without consulting any musty pre- 
cedents of deferential consideration for the central authority at 
Washington, Governor Chase intrepidly opposes the National 
Executive with a firm and commanding attitude in behalf of 
freedom. The moral influence of so true and manly an act is 



1856] INTREPID STATESMEN NEEDED. 303 

incalculable. It will stir the blood of the Northern heart every- 
where. And best of all, it will infuse hope and encouragement 
into the breasts of the men of Kansas. It is but simple truth to 
say that Ohio is fully with Mr. Chase, and that if every Free 
State had a Governor of his temper and mettle and would follow 
his example, the people of each and all would respond enthusi- 
astically to the position. 

It is the want of our times, as it is of all times, to find men 
clear-headed enough to discern the progress of events, and bold 
enough to confront and embrace their issues. Men generally 
love to navigate only those waters that have been sounded in 
every part and clearly mapped. Intrepid political navigators on 
the stormy seas of history have been as rare as great navigators 
in the physical world. The great crowds follow the known 
channel and that alone. "Where nothing has been explored the 
mass of common minds will not venture. Mr. Chase has the 
great merit of leading the way in this Kansas question in an im- 
portant aspect of it. Wielding the executive authority of a great 
people, his voice must be potent in the contest that now rages. 
It was easy for him to have chosen silence ; but he has preferred 
to speak, and to speak on the right side. And while he has done 
no more than his duty, he deserves that applause which the 
friends of freedom everywhere will freely accord. 

Let but a very few States through their executive arm, 
backed by their Legislatures, distinctly declare themselves on 
this Kansas question after the manner of the Governor of Ohio, 
and we shall speedily witness a memorable abatement of the 
pretensions of slavery. Timidity on the part of the North is the 
great cause of the insolent exactions of the slave power. "Were 
the Free States bold and resolute, there would be no difficulty in 
dealing with the question of slavery. "While no injustice would 
be done, and no constitutional right invaded, it would be kept 
within its proper limits. And we should hear far less than we 
do now of agitation, secession, danger to the Union, and such 
like bugbears of the doughfaces and slave-drivers. 



304 DOUGLAS, CUSHING, AND PIERCE. [Jan. 

CRUSHING REBELLION. 

[From the New York Tribune of January 26, 1856.] 

The oligarchy in the South are quick to follow the lead of 
the gentlemen in the Senate who propose to " subdue " the 
North. The Richmond Enquirer already talks in lordly strain 
of the " rebellion in Kansas," which it declares must be put 
down, with a confidence as marked and a tone as resolute as 
characterized the edicts of the British government during our 
revolution. Lord North thought and spoke the same way of 
the Yankees when they tumbled the tea into the docks of Bos- 
ton harbor. He, too, called the people who chose not to be im- 
posed upon "rebels," and said the " rebellion" must be crushed. 
There is a striking similarity, too, in the mode of putting down 
the rebels proposed by the black oligarchy and by their English 
prototypes. It is to set the people by the ears among them- 
selves. The British Cabinet proposed to arm the Indians and 
Tories and let them subdue the Whigs of the .Revolution. The 
slave oligarchy, through the Enquirer, propose that the North- 
ern doughfaces shall do the fighting necessary for the intended 
subjection of the freemen of Kansas. The Enquirer says that 
Mr. Pierce and Mr. Douglas got up the Kansas war, and that 
they should fight it out ; and it expresses its confidence that by 
the aid of the existing army, aided by the conservative (dough- 
face) population of the North, the insurgents can he quelled. 
"With a demeanor as grave as it is amusing, the Enquirer suggests 
that until this force is found insufficient the South should fold 
their arms, prepare for the " exigencies of self-defense," which 
means, we suppose, to watch their colored population and wait 
the result in " perfect independence and commanding dignity." 
This delightful prospect of a civil war in behalf of slavery among 
the people of the Free States is suggested with a charming 
naivete. The Enquirer leans upon its New England champions 
— Pierce, Douglas, Cushingtfc Co. — with a refreshing simplicity, 
and thinks there is no need, from present appearances, of having 
the South " counted in" in the anticipated fight. But if worst 
comes to worst, then the oligarchy is to come to the rescue and 
play the part of Blucher at "Waterloo of the Free States. 

Now we confess that such stuff as this is too much for our 



1856] LETTER FROM HORACE GREELEY. 305 

patience. These rampant threateners of the public peace, these 
vainglorious boasters of all the pluck and all the chivalry of the 
nation, sneakingly propose to plunge the Northern people into 
internecine strife, upon their own territory, on the slavery ques- 
tion, and to simply stand by and hound on the conflict. The 
cowardice and malignity of this proposition need no character- 
ization. Yet we do not doubt that plenty of fools can be found 
at the South who believe that the same fools who were used to 
do the dirty work of slavery in the Nebraska business can be 
made to stand up in the North and fight against freedom at the 
bidding of the slave-holders. All such had better dismiss this 
notion at once. The doughface does not fight. He is a very 
soft-tempered tool. The first hard substance he runs foul of 
turns his edge. He can be relied on for any kind of mean busi- 
ness, but not for any manly act. He is good at a hen-roost, but 
he quails before a broom-stick with a woman at one end of it. 
The idea of that matchless trinity of New England renegades — 
Pierce, Douglas, and Cushing — heading a coup d'etat against 
freedom in Kansas, or anywhere else in the Free States, with the 
show of a hope of success, is unspeakably absurd. The Enquirer 
may rest assured that an attempt to quell freedom in Kansas will 
not be made by the Nebraska conspirators now at the head of 
affairs. It may as well, therefore, stop its discussion about con- 
tingent events that will not occur. The "rebels" will not have 
a shot fired into them by United States forces. The "rebel- 
lion" will go on as it has begun till the "rebels" succeed as 
completely as did the "rebels" of '76. 



[From Horace Greeley.] 

Washington, February 15, 1856. 
Friend Pike : . . . Now as to another share : I don't want to sell 
Tribune stock except as I am obliged to ; but then I am always getting 
into that unpleasant category, and probably shall be soon. Of course I 
shall, if I stay in this infernal hole. Did you ever stay in a place where 
you didn't dare look in a glass when you got up in the morning for fear 
of seeing a scoundrel ? This couldn't happen to me, because I never 
patronize looking-glasses ; but I have seen things here that led me to 
fear for some of my friends. But about the share. You won't be 



30G NOMINATION OF THE KNOW-NOTHINGS. [Fee. 

going East till the fog rises off Passamaquoddy, which I believe is about 
the 1st of June. Meantime I shall be in New York (God grant !), and 
we will talk this over. I never yet knew a man to have money but I 
happened just at that moment to have need of it, and so it will be in the 
spring, I have misgivings. 

My respects to Mrs. Pike, of whom I hear good things in Washing- 
ton. Charge Dana not to slaughter anybody, but be mild and meek- 
souled like me. Yours, Horace Greeley. 

J. S. Pike, Esq. 



THE NATIVE NOMINATION. 

[From the New York Tribune of February, 1856.] 

Many well-meaning, straightforward people have long won- 
dered what the Know-nothing party was really driving at. 
Their expectations in the coming contest for the Presidency 
have been involved in mystery. As a party desiring success for 
its members, upon a homespun basis of good sense, their policy 
was plain. They had only to so act that the anti -Nebraska men 
of the North could co-operate with them, or they with the anti- 
Nebraska men in the election of President, to make a triumph 
certain. To be sure, it would not be the triumph of the Know- 
nothings alone, but it being the best the case admitted of, it 
was clearly their true policy to become partners in a victory 
which they could not achieve without assistance. Many and 
leading members of the party, actuated by fair purposes and 
who have never been willing to believe that the people of the 
North could be brought by any indirection to sustain the late 
measures of the slave propagandists, have labored hard to accom- 
plish this result. It was said over and over again at the late 
Convention that the Northern Know-nothings and the Republi- 
cans acting in concert could easily enough elect a President. 
A.nd the statement is a self-evident truth. If we take the 
last elections as a criterion of judgment, the fact is indisputable. 
But there were plenty of Northern Know-nothings in the Con- 
vention who evidently did not want to succeed on such a basis. 
It was of no consequence that they and the whole Convention 
were told that if no such co-operation were possible, then the race 
of the Know-nothing party was run, and that they could not 
hope for success anywhere. Such a consideration had no ten- 



1856] MR. FILLMORE THE CANDIDATE. 307 

dency to dissuade them from pursuing a course fatal to the suc- 
cess of the party. The Convention persisted in destroying all 
chance of a participation in a presidential triumph and nominated 
Mr. Fillmore on a certainty of defeat. 

This action lifts the veil and shows clearly what the present 
managers of the Know-nothing organization are at. There is 
no longer any uncertainty as to the policy of the leaders of that 
party. They do not expect to succeed. They do not even care 
a brass farthing about the doctrines which have given the order 
a spurious popularity and have been the foundation of all its suc- 
cesses. They have not recognized a single distinctive principle 
or measure in the Convention. They have been dumb on every 
issue, and have adjourned without saying any thing or doing any 
thing beyond nominating Millard Fillmore for President. They 
have passed no resolutions, made no platform, but simply nomi- 
nated a ticket and run. They propose no contest on any doc- 
trine or principle or measure, but simply a canvass on a man — 
and a man who is the representative of neither side of any living 
political issue. Occupying only a negative position, he is in- 
tended to accomplish only negative results. He is simply 
pitched into the canvass as an obstruction. To be sure it is 
plain enough to be seen that if he were to be elected he would 
be found an inveterate enemy to the cause and the friends 
of freedom. He has never occupied any other position these 
seven years past. 

But he is out of the range of such a possibility, and the fact 
thus becomes of small consequence. Mr. Fillmore's friends 
simply intend to use him in the canvass of 1856 as Mr. Van 
Buren was used in 1848 — for breaking down another party. 
The game is the same, though the result may be different. The 
action of the Philadelphia Convention is a manoeuvre of the New 
York Know-nothing and Silver-Gray politicians to damage the 
Republican party and injure certain leading individuals therein. 
The Convention has been used simply as an instrument to further 
certain personal aims of these politicians. They have thought 
that by taking Mr. Fillmore as the Know-nothing candidate 
they would have an advantage with the old moderate "Whigs 
everywhere in the North, and would draw oif many of them to 
his support on the ground of his former elevation. 



308 ]VO CHANCE FOR SUCCESS. [Feb. 

The object, then, of the Know-nothings has dwindled to this 
— to defeat the Republican party. That is to say, this is the 
object of those who have managed the Philadelphia Convention 
and nominated Mr. Fillmore. The ex- Vice-President is put 
forward as a man who can entice votes enough from the Repub- 
lican ranks in the Free States to give the election to the Ne- 
braska Democracy. It is a fortunate circumstance, and an omen 
of good to the cause of freedom, that circumstances have con- 
strained the Know-nothing nomination thus early. The contest 
now immediately opens, not between the Know-nothing candi- 
date and anybody else, but between those who are for the spread 
of slavery and those who are against it. It is an important cir- 
cumstance and a peculiarly happy one that we thus early know 
the whole aim of the Know-nothing leaders in the next Presi- 
dential contest. We understand them fully, and it will go hard 
but every Northern voter shall understand them also before the 
election comes on. 

This early nomination will prove the most disastrous blow 
that could have been given to the objects of those who have 
made it. There is now ample time to expose to the country the 
hollow motives which actuated it and the results which alone can 
flow from it. It will do more than any thing else could have 
done to divide the country upon the real issue before it. The 
Know-nothing candidate will be gradually crowded one side, 
and every day's discussion will lessen his support, while the ranks 
of the friends of freedom will be correspondingly increased. 
Day by day it will grow clearer and clearer to the popular mind 
that men must range themselves on the one side or the other of 
the great question of the extension of slavery. And it must at 
length come to be regarded as a farce to think of voting for a 
man who represents neither side of the question, but is simply 
held out as a lure to catch votes without having the ghost of a 
chance for success. 

Mr. Fillmore will serve the personal purposes of those who 
have procured his nomination perhaps as well as anybody who 
could have been hit upon, but his nomination is a singular sacri- 
fice of large motives to small ones. The Know-nothing candi- 
date, had he been the right man, stood a chance of carrying this 
State in the presidential election. But Mr. Fillmore stands no 



1856] BRITISH ENLISTMENTS. 309 

chance at all. His antecedents will repel the Hard vote, which 
in a certain emergency might have gone largely to the Know- 
nothing candidate (as it went at the last election), while from 
all other quarters accessions are out of the question. In fact, we 
look upon Mr. Fillmore's nomination as a voluntary sacrifice of 
all the chances of the Know-nothing party in this State. The 
authors of it have their own personal aims to subserve, which 
will in due time appear. They have scuttled the ship without 
the knowledge of most of the individuals on board, who will 
only become aware of the fact at the moment they see them- 
selves going down. The unsophisticated masses of the Know- 
nothing party in the North will probably not awake to the swin- 
dle of Mr. Fillmore's nomination until all chance or hope is 
passed of keeping the Know-nothing vessel afloat, or even of 
saving themselves from going down with the wreck. We will 
not, however, despair that many may reasonably take to their 
boats and find a hospitable reception on board a stancher craft 
and among friends more trustworthy. 

On the whole we cannot but think that since the leaders of 
the Know-nothing party were determined not to aid but to pre- 
vent the election of a friend of freedom as President, that they 
were incapable of doing the Rejmblican party a greater service 
than to nominate their candidate thus early and to name Millard 
Fillmore as the man. For both of which acts we therefore beg 
to tender them our sincere thanks. 



THE ENLISTMENT QUESTION. 
[From the New York Tribune of February 29, 1856.] 

"We publish this morning the long and important correspond- 
ence between our government and that of England on the En- 
listment Question, which was transmitted to the Senate yester- 
day. It concludes with a request to the British Cabinet to recall 
Mr. Crampton, its Envoy at Washington, as well as its Consuls 
at New York, Philadelphia, and Cincinnati. The tone of the 
correspondence is generally courteous, and the demand for the 
recall of the British functionaries is made in as civil a manner as 
so ungracious a request could be put. This correspondence dem- 



310 THE BRITISH MINISTER. [Feb. 

onstrates that Mr. Crampton's duties at "Washington will very 
soon cease, if they have not already ended. It would seem that 
the British government do not intend to recall him, and thus 
nothing remains but his dismissal. Indeed, that step must in- 
evitably follow this correspondence. However, the dismissal of 
a minister, either with or without special provocation, is not a 
cause of war. Accordingly, the most timorous need not ap- 
prehend any belligerent proceedings on the part of the British 
lion on account of this event. "We have our own views of the 
original motive for this extra dash of political diplomacy, but we 
need not dwell upon them here. A small infusion of Jacksonian 
mettle, whether genuine or spurious, injected into the languid 
and disordered veins of our Nebraska Executive, was no doubt 
thought an excellent prescription to revive its constitution by 
the Yankee Mephistopheles who, in his official capacity of At- 
torney-General, keeps the conscience of Mr. President Pierce. 
Whether the remedy will prove efficacious remains to be seen. 
The British lion has the reputation the world over of being quite 
indifferent as to whose mutton he devours, provided he can con- 
veniently satiate his appetite. England was sorely straitened for 
men last spring to recruit her exhausted legions in the Crimea, 
and cast about in every direction to find them. Evidently the 
government of that kingdom was not over particular how or 
where the recruits were picked up, so they were only obtained. 
In this spirit, and with that sort of devil-may-care manner 
and feeling which is characteristic of Mr. Bull, British agents 
were sent to the United States with the single purpose of 
getting the greatest possible number of persons in the shortest 
possible time. We judge from the history of the proceedings as 
disclosed in the documents before us that while the parties en- 
tertained an amiable anxiety to keep out of the clutches of the 
law, they had not, one and all, any particular scruples in regard 
to violating either the sovereign rights or the specific statutes of 
this country. They simply wanted men, and were bound to get 
them if they could. On looking at the acts of the chief actors 
in the affair, we are now only surprised that they should have so 
distinctly committed themselves. Mr. Crampton is no wiser 
than to be caught indulging in correspondence with the most 
prominent of these recruiting sergeants. He thus fails to skil- 



1856] MR. CRAMPTON. 311 

fully disguise his own complicity in the overt acts of which they 
were proved guilty. He wrote letters both to Hertz and Rowe- 
craft. Talleyrand used to say, " Give me but two lines of any 
man's writing and I. will hang him." Mr. Crampton was guilty 
of such epistolary indiscretion and must now pay the penalty 
therefor. 

The correspondence demonstrates that the right is with the 
American side in this controversy. Indeed the other party has 
not a leg to stand on. Lord Clarendon has done the best he 
could ; but it is a question whether on the whole he would not 
to-day be better pleased with his own position if, instead of de- 
bating the subject in the dissembling and quibbling manner he 
has, he had simply backed out at the beginning, confessed the 
error of his ways, and given signs of heartfelt repentance. Mr. 
Secretary Marcy makes his points : First, that in attempting to 
obtain men on our territory for military purposes, by agents 
specially employed, and traversing the country for that object, 
England violated the law of nations and infringed upon our 
sovereignty as an independent power ; secondly, that in this at- 
tempt at enlistment her agents also violated the express provi- 
sions of our statutes relating to that subject. In meeting these 
two points Lord Clarendon argues, with all the disingenuousness, 
ambiguity, and diplomatic wile of which the case is susceptible. 
Indeed he does not stick at downright misrepresentation. Mr. 
Marcy fully meets and confutes him on the legal questions, as 
every reader will see on perusing the correspondence. That 
what the British agents did was in contravention of our local 
statutes and in violation of the law of nations admits of no doubt, 
and Lord Clarendon stultifies himself in pretending the contrary. 
In truth, he only excites derision by his various dodges from pillar 
to post in the course of the discussion. Driven from one shelter 
he only flies to another, to be as surely driven from that. He 
makes a firm stand nowhere. 

To the question of the practice of nations in this matter of 
enlistments for foreign service, with which Lord Palmerston al- 
leges the British experiment to have been in harmony, Mr. 
Marcy does not address himself. Yet he might have floored his 
antagonist on this point as completely as he has on the others. 
To go no further back than the present war, we find the judicial 



312 MR. MARCY AND LORD CLARENDON. [Feb. 

decisions by the courts all over Germany, and the police regula- 
tions of Prussia, Hanover, and other continental governments 
flatly contradicting Lord Clarendon's position. The practice of 
enlisting men, either directly or indirectly, has not been per- 
mitted. The British Consul at Cologne was not long since con- 
demned to imprisonment by the Court of Police for his efforts to 
procure recruits to go to the island of Heligoland, there to enlist 
in the British army. Heligoland was used as a depot for enlist- 
ments in Germany, as Halifax was here. The Hanseatic Towns 
put a stop to like proceedings by similar means. Even the Hano- 
verian government, whose king is a relative of Queen Victoria, 
prohibited all such action in the way of recruiting as is defended 
by Lord Clarendon. Mr. Marcy's doctrine is thus fully sustained 
by the usage of European courts and governments upon the 
point in question. 

In fine, Lord Clarendon's dispatches are lame every way, 
and he makes out no case against the American positions. Noth- 
ing can be clearer than that these positions are wholly incontro- 
vertible. The matter standing thus as against the English Cabi- 
net, the ground is properly taken that an atonement is due. It 
is not sufficient that the illegal proceedings are suspended, after 
repeated protests on our part ; voluminous correspondence and 
legal proceedings against parties implicated have compelled it. 
Reparation is demanded. The British government is asked to 
withdraw the offending parties as a homage to violated law and 
national sovereignty. This concession is declined on the ground 
that the cessation of the offence should be deemed sufficient. 
Our government says no, and adds that if the delinquents are 
not recalled they must be dismissed. This will be the upshot 
of the matter. All the talk of the London Times about Eng- 
land having apologized, and that she cannot and will not do 
more, and that this ought to be satisfactory, and that if it is not 
she will go to war before she will descend to humiliation at our 
bidding, is mere moonshine. England has done nothing except 
to desist from palpable violations of our sovereignty and our laws. 
It is this which the London Times sets up as an acknowledg- 
ment, a reparation, an apology. This is simply absurd. It is 
perhaps natural that the Times should consider it a vast conde- 
scension on the part of the English government to cease aggres- 



1856] REPORT ON KANSAS. 313 

sions upon another power simply because they are objected to. 
We confess it is something of a stretch toward decent behavior, 
but we cannot altogether regard it, as the Times would have us, 
as a most honorable and complete reparation of a gross wrong 
and a flagrant insult. 



KANSAS IN CONGRESS. 
[From the New York Tribune of March, 1856.] 

We publish elsewhere the report of the majority of the 
House Committee on Elections in the Whitfield and Reeder case. 
The interest which attaches to the subject, as well as the ability 
with which it is treated, will secure to it a general perusal. That 
the essential spirit of border ruffianism has found its way into 
Congress is evident from the simple fact that a minority of the 
same committee have had the face to make a report against an 
investigation of the circumstances relating to the election of 
Whitfield. It is not only universally known that the Kansas 
elections have been carried by armed Missourians overpowering, 
and in many cases actually driving the legitimate voters of the 
territory from the polls, but the fact is acknowledged and even 
boasted of by the chief actors and leaders of the infamous inva- 
sion. Stringfellow, Atchison, and their confederates have re- 
peatedly admitted in reply to the accusation of border ruffian in- 
terference that the Missourians did interfere and carry the elec- 
tions in Kansas, and that they meant to do it again. 

With this flagrant boast thus before Congress it is surprising 
to find anybody unwilling to enter at once into a full and de- 
tailed examination ol the case, in order that its merits may be 
reached with absolute precision. To oppose such an investiga- 
tion betrays a spirit of violence and injustice essentially the same 
with that which inspired the outrageous proceedings under re- 
view. For Congress, or any party among its members, to re- 
fuse to adopt the only means of an impartial examination of this 
question, is something disgraceful to any deliberative body pre- 
tending to honesty or fairness. No doubt legal quibbles enough 
can be found upon which to rest such a refusal. The subter- 
fuges and crooked ways of the law are sufficiently numerous to 



314 CONGBESS MUST DO ITS BUT!'. [March 

hide any amount of dodging, knavery, and chicanery. But the 
plain common-sense and common honesty of the nation will 
revolt at this unwillingness to investigate such bold criminality 
as was manifested at the Kansas elections. The people every- 
where believe that of all the important duties of this Congress 
the most important is to probe this Kansas question to the bot- 
tom. They are convinced that if the representatives of the peo- 
ple have any business at all at Washington, it is to hold a torch 
to the face of the villany practised upon the unoffending settlers 
of Kansas, and to unmask the wickedness that seeks to enforce 
its tyrannical sway over them. 

If Congress is unwilling to perform this duty, if it undertakes 
virtually to endorse the doctrine of the border ruffians — that 
might is right, and that the rule of Kansas belongs not to the 
people of the Territory but to the strongest battalions from other 
States, swarming at its election stands — let it look well to the 
consequences. It could be guilty of no more serious, no more 
incendiary, no more .revolutionary act. It would be equivalent 
to saying to the people of all the States that Kansas is simply a 
battle-ground ; that force is the measure of justice and equity 
for that Territory ; and that all that remains is for those inter- 
ested to go there and fight it out. Let Congress beware lest its 
action should stimulate to intenser heat the already burning sen- 
timent that tills the breasts of millions in the North. 

The country expects Congress to be measurably honest and 
decent in treating the Kansas question. It expects the National 
Legislature to protect the people of that Territory in the exer- 
cise of the rights that have been trampled upon by the armed 
and swaggering semi-savage hordes who prowl around its bor- 
ders and drink whiskey in the wake of Atchison and Stringfellow. 
The people everywhere mean that the settler of Kansas shall be 
fully protected, and that those who have wrested his rights from 
him shall be made to disgorge the plunder. What sort of jus- 
tice and fair play is that advocated by Toombs in the Senate and 
Stephens in the House, when they say that, Kansas having got a 
legislature and a representative in Congress, no more questions 
are to be asked, and that the people of that Territory must 
quietly submit to their lot without inquiring into the lawless 
outrages which have imposed these vermin upon them as legisla- 



1856] INVESTIGATION DEMANDED. 315 

tors and law-givers ? Such insolence as this is something more 
than special pleading and quibbling over legal forms. To assert 
such a monstrous proposition is to outrage and insult every 
manly impulse. If Congress is to take its inspiration or direc- 
tion from such counsels as these, the sooner it adjourns the better. 
It will prove to be no allayer of strife, no harmonizer of irrita- 
tions, but a promoter of both. 

Kansas is to-day enduring an infamous tyranny. It is ruled 
by robbers. Not robbers of gold and silver, but robbers of a 
deeper dye and a worse grade of crime ; by men who are the 
agents of political highwaymen, who have ruthlessly seized the 
rights of the honest settler, and left him as destitute as the Caro- 
lina negro of every political franchise save those which his 
own right hand, grasping one of Sharp's rifles, can secure to 
him. To hear Senators and Representatives declare in their 
seats that no investigation into this state of things should be made, 
and, of course, no steps taken to right this mighty wrong, is 
enough to stir the bones of our Revolutionary sires in their 
graves. No investigation, Mr. Toombs ? No investigation, Mr. 
Stephens ? This doctrine might go down very well on the planta- 
tion, touching an inquiry into the nature of the rule exercised over 
the enslaved blacks. But it is a doctrine which will not go down 
when the right of the slave power to rule the free working men 
of the North in Kansas is the issue at stake. The Legislature of 
Kansas is a usurpation. Whitfield, the sitting member in Con- 
gress from that Territory, is a pretender. The whole edifice of 
government in Kansas — that government which President Pierce 
says he will maintain by force of arms till it is legally discredited 
and overthrown — is a swindle. It rests on fraud and violence. 
It is the result of an atrocious infraction of popular right, and 
deserves no better fate than to be overthrown by the people it 
aims to subjugate. Justice demands its instant suppression. It 
ought not to be allowed to insult the country by another day's 
existence. And yet, when a proposition is made in due course 
of business in Congress to take the initiatory steps toward strip- 
ping the mask from the face of this tyranny, and relieving the 
people of Kansas from its sway, it is met with the cool rejoinder 
that it is a government which answers every purpose of legiti- 
mate authority — that it is, in fact, on the face of it, a legal gov- 



316 MR. CONSUL BARCLAY. [March 

ernmeiitj and therefore it is not worth while to enter into any in- 
vestigation concerning it. 

Such is the spirit of the minority report on the Whitfield and 
Reeder case. We leave the further consideration of the subject 
with our readers, who cannot fail to draw from it a new lesson 
upon the violence and rapacity of slavery, and the total want of 
confidence which every right-minded man must have in those 
who volunteer in its defence, when such are the lengths to which 
they are ready to go. 



INJURED INNOCENCE. 
[From the New York Tribune of March 12, 1856.] 

The British Consul's chief clerk, or secretary, or what not, 
publicly protests in a letter to the Herald, which we transfer to 
another column of this paper, against the truth of our statements 
respecting the arbitration case and the payment of the $1500 
damages to the owners of the bark Louisiana. This letter has 
one advantage over other communications from the Consulate — 
it does not menace the Tribune with a suit for libel. But even 
with this improvement it cannot be called successful. It con- 
tains some statements which, whatever their merits in the eyes 
of their author, have not the essential quality of truth. One of 
these is, that we have implicated Mr. Consul Barclay " with cer- 
tain transactions which never took place " — meaning, of course, 
the chartering of the bark Louisiana to carry men to Halifax, 
and the payment of $1500 by the British Government as damages 
for having failed to furnish the men whose transportation was 
thus agreed for. Now if such transactions never occurred, why 
does not Mr. Barclay, or Mr. Stanley, or whoever he may be, 
fortify his denial by the evidence of the gentlemen whom we 
have named as arbitrators in the case ? These gentlemen are 
Captain Dunham, of the firm of Dunham & Dimon, and Mr. 
Tileston, of the firm of Spofford, Tileston & Co. If there was 
no such arbitration and no award of $1500 against the British 
Government, and no payment at all on its account, we presume 
these gentlemen will be ready to do justice in the premises and 
relieve its representatives from our imputations. Why, when 



185(5] MB. STANLEY'S DENIAL. 317 

Mr. Stanley is so loud and sweeping in his denial of our state- 
ments, does he avoid bringing into court these indisputable wit- 
nesses, whose names we have given to the public ? Does he fear 
that their assertions might not agree with his own ? He alleges 
also that Mr. Barclay has notified us that our allegations were 
incorrect. This is totally devoid of foundation in fact. We 
have not had the honor of any communication whatever from 
that functionary, except a visit from a person of very bad man- 
ners, who did not even inform us of his name, and gave no other 
evidence of his having been sent by the Consul than to demand 
with peremptory pomposity the names of our informants, and to 
threaten us with a libel suit. This possibly may be an English 
style of imparting information on such subjects ; possibly Mr. 
Stanley supposes that when so important a personage as H. B. 
M. Consul condescends to send a fellow to bully the conductors 
of an American journal, they are bound to understand everything 
the Consul might say if he were present and in a position to 
make such communications at first hand ; but for our part we 
disclaim all such clairvoyance. But if Mr. Barclay had addressed 
to us a civil note of explanation or contradiction, or whatever he 
chose, he knows, and Mr. Stanley knows, that it would have been 
prominently published. It is our wont to give all accused par- 
ties an opportunity to be heard. Indeed, in this very case, 
when a contradiction of a quite anonymous character appeared in 
the Commercial Advertiser, we at once gave it a place in our 
columns, with such explanations as were adapted to enable the 
public to judge of its value. 

The truth seems to be, however, that it is useless for the 
British agents to attempt to escape the position in which they 
have placed themselves. Mr. Stanley holds the position of a 
culprit in this enlistment business, and is the last man to be ex- 
hibiting indignation over the allegation of his activity in prose- 
cuting the illegal purposes of his government. We take the fol- 
lowing passage from Mr. Marcy's dispatch of the 28th of Decem- 
ber, which we published some days ago along with the rest of 
the correspondence relating to this difficulty. The extract de- 
fines Mr. Stanley's present position, as well as that of Mr. Bar- 
clay, briefly and pointedly, and saves us the trouble of particu- 
larly looking up his antecedents: 



318 MR. HOWE, OF NOVA SCOTIA. [March 

" The persons connected with the British Consulate at New York have 
been actively engaged in furthering the recruiting scheme. Mr. Stanley, 
the assistant or clerk of the Consul, has taken a more open and effective 
part than the Consul himself, and is now under an indictment for violating 
the law against foreign recruiting. The Consul, Mr. Barclay, could not 
but know of Mr. Stanley's conduct in that matter, but he still retains him 
in the Consulate. 

" Besides the responsibility that rightfully attaches to Mr. Barclay for 
the improper conduct of an employee in his office and under his immediate 
and daily observation, this Government is satisfied that he has himself not 
only favored the recruiting for the British army but has participated in it. 
Moreover, the improper conduct of Mr. Barclay in the case of the bark 
Maury has justly given offence to the commercial community in which he 
resides and with which he has official communication. 

" For these reasons this Government deems it proper to instruct you to 
ask the Government of Great Britain to withdraw Mr. Barclay from the 
post of British Consul at New York." 

But though Mr. Stanley is under indictment, we have rea- 
son to assert upon the best of evidence that he denies the pay- 
ment of the $1500 damages by the Consulate. Perhaps Mr. 
Barclay did not pay over the money personally, neither perhaps 
did Mr. Stanley. But what of that? The case we stated was 
this : Mr. Howe, of Nova Scotia, came here to hunt up recruits. 
Expecting to get them, he chartered the bark Louisiana. But 
the men were not forthcoming, and so damages to the amount of 
$1500 were exacted and paid by the Consulate, under the order 
of referees, to whom the case was submitted. Now we cannot 
produce the private correspondence between Mr. Howe and Mr. 
Barclay or Mr. Stanley, to show how the matter was adjusted 
between them. But who will deny that the whole job was a 
joint operation among these gentlemen ? We will admit that 
neither of the three paid over the money in person, because it 
was paid by the British Government. Either one of the three 
may fairly deny that he has paid any money in this case. But 
will either Mr. Stanley or Mr. Barclay deny that it was paid in 
this city, and paid on behalf of the government whose local 
agents and employees they are ? 

"Why should any of these gentlemen undertake to mystify 
this case when the facts are substantially as we have related 
them, and they know it i Did not Mr. II owe come here after 
recruits, and did not Mr. Howe hob and nob with Mr. Barclay 



1856] BRITISH OFFICIALS ALL CONSPIRING. 319 

and Mr. Stanley for weeks and months ? Mr. Howe is a most 
intelligent and companionable man, always able, energetic, and 
good-natured, and did lie not work together with the Consul 
and his clerk in the most harmonious manner ? Did he not dis- 
close to them his operations ? Did he not ask and take their ad- 
vice ? Did they not suggest, confer with, and aid Mr. Howe in 
every possible way ? Did they not talk over the matter of that 
bark Louisiana together, and jointly decide upon her charter ? 
Did they not, in friendly counsel over their wine and cigars, 
calculate the chances of their success in the chase for recruits ? 
Did they not jointly confer upon the obstacles which they unex- 
pectedly met with, and did Mr. Howe write one or two or more 
very smart letters touching his business here which he consulted 
Messrs. Barclay and Stanley about publishing ? Was it not all 
through, from beginning to end, recruiting, chartering, and all, 
Mr. Stanley and Mr. Howe, Mr. Howe and Mr. Stanley, Mr. 
Barclay and Mr. Howe, Mr. Howe and Mr. Barclay? "Were 
they not all in the same boat, and all paddling one way, and all 
acting under the orders of the British Government, which stood 
approvingly by and footed all the bills in the end, the $1500 
damages included ? 

Don't dodge the question, gentlemen, and don't try to evade 
an honest responsibility in the premises. And above all, don't 
show yourselves so excessively ashamed of having been caught 
obeying the orders of your government. It has hitherto been 
supposed that England was a great and powerful country, able to 
take care of its public agents, and which no British subject need 
fear anywhere to avow that he had served. The present conduct 
of Messrs. Barclay and Stanley would seem, however, to imply 
the very contrary. They may be very clever men of business, 
notwithstanding the unlucky affair of the bark Maury, but we 
fear they must be set down as very poor patriots. 



DOUGLAS S LAST. 

[From the New York Tribune of March, 1856.] 

Mr. Douglas's report from the Senate's Committee on the 
Territories is so immensely extended that we cannot possibly 



320 DOUGLAS'S HEAVY LOAD. [March 

find space for it. Neither is its publication necessary. The fact 
that this gentleman finds it necessary at this present stage of the 
Kansas question to write a book explanatory of the case, shows 
of itself plainly enough in what complications, in what difficul- 
ties, what embarrassments the pernicious Kansas-Nebraska act 
has involved the question of slavery in the Territories. Before 
the enactment of that fruitful source of mischief, everything was 
well enough there. The country as well as the Territories was 
at peace, and would have remained at peace but for that tire- 
brand of agitation and discord. For the present state of affairs, 
for the difficulties and outrages in Kansas, for all that now im- 
perils the public tranquillity, for all the forebodings and appre- 
hensions that the era of civil strife is nigh upon us, the Kansas 
bill, with its putative father, Mr. Senator Douglas, is responsible. 
No wonder the Senator feels the pressure of this responsibility 
and laboriously plods through endless pages of heavy work by 
\ way of evading it. The very fact of his feeling the necessity of 
constructing a document of such dimensions exhibits, more fully 
than anything else can, his desperate anxiety to extricate him- 
self and the party of slavery from the load under which they 
stagger. 

To say that he has done this, or even begun to do it, were to 
insult the common sense of every reader. All the recitation of 
history, all the argument, all the rhetoric that he or any one else 
can bring to bear on the question of the propriety of that enact- 
ment, fall like spent bullets before the walls of an impregnable 
fortress. The question lies in a nut-shell, and every man, 
woman, and child in the country understands it and has long un- 
derstood it. To write at this time of day from twelve to twenty 
newspaper columns on the subject in order to enlighten the peo- 
ple, is to waste a great deal of time that the author might much 
better have devoted to repentance of the act he aims to defend. 

On all this wilderness of words we hardly know where to 
alight without touching a point in the case that at one time or 
another has already been fully treated in our pages. Over and 
over again have we dissipated every argument and consideration 
which this report now ropes in to the political drag-net. To 
go over the ground now seems as useless as to engage in refuting 
the contents of any other campaign pamphlet of the next Presi- 



1856] THE DOUGHFACE'S MANUAL. 321 

dential election. For this report can hardly be considered any- 
thing else than the Doughface's Manual on Kansas, designed for > 
candidates for that honorable profession, and to strengthen the 
weaker brethren in the approaching electoral contest. 

The report, notwithstanding its vast extent, is remarkable for 
its omissions. It lngs in an endless quantity of superfluous 
matter, reciting, for example, in great detail, the proceedings of 
the Emigrant Aid Society, but it omits entirely to dwell upon 
the border-ruffian invasions of the Territory and their infamous 
proceedings while there. The outrages of which the settlers in 
Kansas are the victims are wholly slurred over or denied. Mr. 
Douglas seems almost as innocent of all knowledge of their oc- 
currence as though he had just dropped from the moon. But 
of course it is quite too much to expect either truth or fairness 
from the author of the Kansas- Nebraska bill. We have not 
looked for it in Iris report, and are not disappointed in not find- 
ing it. Some people set up a pretence of candor, but the dema- 
gogism of Douglas is transparent. 

We might go on to exhibit the way in which the much -lauded 
doctrine of squatter sovereignty is now interpreted, and in which 
Mr. Douglas emasculates it of all its pretended virtue, but it 
would be to very small purpose. To follow a pettifogging law- 
yer around the barren stump of discussion where he seeks to 
dodge the blows struck at him is a useless task after his tricks 
have been once fully exposed and his case thoroughly broken 
down, as is the fact with Mr. Douglas. What is wanting in the 
Kansas disorder at this moment is the spirit of martyrdom and 
Sharp's rifles. So far as the public is concerned no more argu- 
mentation is required on the great issue of liberty or slavery for 
Kansas. Men's minds are made up. The people have found 
a verdict ; their decision is rendered. The reports now to be 
heeded are the reports from Kansas, not those about it. The 
answers to them are wanted in the shape of true men well 
armed, hastening to preserve to freedom the country which 
these verbose modern Arnolds are ready to betray into the hands 
of a far more hateful enemy of liberty and equality than were 
the ministers and counsellors of George III. The cause of free- 
dom can take no harm from the paper paixhans of the dough- 
faces. Let the free emigrants pour into Kansas, and all may 
yet be saved ! 



S22 FREMONT FOR PRESIDENT. [April 

THE PRESIDENCY. 
[From the New York Tribune.'] 

Washington, April 12, 1856. 

I must make short stories. Everybody is full of the Presi- 
dency. Among the Republicans there is a strong apparent cur- 
rent for Fremont. Some say it is all set running by the poli- 
ticians and won't do. Mr. Chase has numerous friends. So has 
Banks. Judge McLean is spoken of. Preston King is not 
much mentioned, but who is a better man? But amid all the 
rivalry of sentiment no hostility prevails. There is an unusual 
disposition to defer all personal preferences to the good of the 
cause. The aim of all is for the best and strongest man. There 
is need of m-eat wisdom and caution in the selection. This is 
felt by all, and no desire is exhibited to crowd anybody as a 
candidate upon an unwilling minority. This feeling seems now so 
strong as to ensure unanimity at the close. Of the prominent 
candidates Colonel Fremont is the most questionable by his ante- 
cedents and the one upon whom strong doubts centre. Let there 
be no haste and no dropping of the substance in the pursuit of 
the shadow. The opposition to Nebraskaism stands on a princi- 
ple. In the selection of a candidate this must be recognized 
first of all. Availability is good in its place ; but let all look 
sharp that we do not abandon what we know to be good for that 
which, though promising, may prove deceptive. I need not 
argue the point. It is enough that I suggest it. 

It needs no extra penetration to see a rising spirit here at the 
prospects of freedom in the ensuing canvass. The day already 
breaks which betokens the coming sun. The question to be de- 
cided by the Presidential election is, ' ' Shall Kansas be a Free or 
a Slave State ?" The electricity of the question will consume the 
withes of party and flash liberty over a continent. J. S. P. 



THE ADMISSION OF KANSAS. 
[From the Keiv York Tribune.] 

Washington, April 24, 1856. 
"Whosoever wants Kansas to be a free State will not object to 
admitting her under the Topeka Constitution. And it is the true 



1856] WHY NOT ADMIT KANSAS? 323 

test of a man's real desire to recover that Territory to freedom 
to bid him say where he stands on this vital question. Whoso- 
ever demurs and queries and objects to coming up to the point 
of admission is willing to be cheated and ready to acquiesce in 
the final transfer of Kansas to the slave power. The North 
could have saved Kansas to freedom by standing together against 
the repeal of the Missouri restriction. It failed to do it, and 
threw it mercilessly into the unwashed hands of the border 
ruffians. It now has a second chance to save it, and may do so 
if it will. The catastrophe, the lamentable and ignominious 
catastrophe of disembowelling the great Northern preserve, 
gouging a whole empire out of free territory to be blackened 
with slavery, can be averted to-day fully and finally simply by 
Northern men saying it shall be done. Why is not every man 
alert to seize the opportunity ? Wherefore this inertia, this par- 
alytic gait, this palsied step ? Apparently because certain indi- 
viduals seem to think it would gratify and inure to the benefit 
of a party with whose objects they profess not to sympathize. 
The obstructions in the way are paltry, narrow, partisan. This 
great question, fraught with consequences perilous, threatening, 
and destructive, is treated as though it were one of no more 
than every-day importance. Men handle the fate and fortunes 
of a nation whose expansion is a marvel and whose destiny 
is the great political problem of the age, wholly in reference 
to their own personal or party interests. Every consideration of 
a national and patriotic character demands the instant settlement 
of the question. Kansas can be composed, the country tranquil- 
lized, harmony between the two sections measurably restored, by 
the prompt admission of that Territory as a State under the 
Constitution adopted by the great majority of her citizens. Her 
admission would be preeminently an act of peace and harmony 
and concord. It should commend itself to every interest, and 
especially every conservative interest, in the country. The 
fires of agitation would be quenched by it, for it would extinguish 
the fuel that feeds them. Politically, it would be the severest 
blow that the Republican party could receive, for it would rein- ' 
state the Democratic party everywhere in the North in a day. 

Why, then, is not Kansas admitted with her constitution as 
she stands, with all these inducements to back her earnest appli- 



324 A BARREN CABINET. [April 

cation ? Mark the answer, and see how it is justified by the 
sequel, if the dominant party should be able to retain power at 
the ensuing election. Kansas is not admitted now, because it is 
the determination of the slave power to enslave her ; and the 
Administration and the Northern leaders of the sham Democ- 
racy are afraid to interpose to prevent the catastrophe. Kansas 
stands to-day, bound hand and foot by the Administration, who 
will not let her go free, and she is to be sacrificed and turned 
over to slavery through the influence of the same class of low- 
born and revolting considerations that originally prompted the 
step which exposed her to invasion and reduction by the pro- 
slavery border ruffians. 

Let it be understood that Kansas cannot save herself, the 
Free-State party of the Territory cannot save her, however nu- 
merous it may be, while the Douglas bill stands as a shelter for 
the consummation of the determined purposes of the pro-slavery 
men and the border-ruffian Legislature. That Territory is 
doomed, unless it is rescued by the voice of the people of the 
Free States in the Presidential election. J. S. P. 



THE PARTY OF ONE IDEA. 

[From the New York Tribune.] 

Washington, April 28, 1856. 
This is the most idealess of administrations, and deserves to 
be expelled from power for its barrenness. It has but one 
thought, and that is slavery. To strengthen slavery where it 
exists and to provide for its spread where it does not, is the 
only object on which we find any expression of its activities. In 
every other respect it sleeps, save where it may be found pull- 
ing the wires of small politics. Mr. Marcy is a shrewd and not 
unwise man, who manages our foreign relations with a com- 
mendable sense of propriety and no mean share of ability. Mr. 
Guthrie watches over Uncle Sam's strong box like any other 
decent man who would not choose to be implicated in stealing. 
Mr. Campbell looks after the mail routes, and Mr. McClelland 
oversees the landed estate. Mr. Dobbin takes care of his health 



1856] ONLY ONE IDEA. 325 

and attends to the routine of the Navy, magnifying his office 
what he can. The President and the two remaining members 
of the Cabinet, Jeff. Davis of the War Department and Caleb 
dishing, Attorney-General, plan and execute what is done in 
our domestic relations, as well as inspire an occasional newspaper 
splurge on foreign affairs for bunkum. The central thought of 
these men, and the one on which all their activity and that of 
the Administration is displayed, is slavery. Mr. Pierce uses it 
as an engine to secure his re-election ; Mr. dishing as the most 
ready instrument at his hand to perpetuate his official elevation ; 
and Mr. Davis is filled with it because he is intensely desirous to 
spread the institution, with a view to give political power to his 
section generally, and to himself particularly. 

"What was /originally and is now anomalous and exceptional in 
our institutions, and what the founders of the Government aimed 
to dissipate and finally extinguish as an influence of malign po- 
tency upon our theory and practice of republicanism, this the 
activities of the present Administration are wholly and exclu- 
sively bent upon cherishing, maintaining, and extending. The 
evidence is totally wanting that it has either friendship or sym- 
pathy for what is good in our system. It is the bad only that it 
seems to aim to spread and eternize. Everywhere in its acts 
and writings slavery is bulwarked and countenanced and put on 
a level with freedom. Not the slightest intimation is ever given 
that it is in the slightest degree unfriendly to national character, 
to intelligence, or to thrift. On the contrary, it is maintained as 
a specialty of our own, which patriotism and our constitutional 
obligations alike demand our people to nurse and defend and 
cover the country with, to an extent commensurate with the 
desires of the slaveholding population. 

It is in the cultivation and expression and development of 
these ideas that the brains of this Administration find their full 
scope and exclusive occupation. It is in deriding and scornfully 
defying the generous sentiments of freedom, the tranquil good 
sense which objects to the spread of slavery on economic grounds, 
and the promptings of a spirit of philanthropy and justice which 
declares against it on loftier considerations, that the pen of the 
Administration finds its chief employment. Everything else is 
neglected to this end. Comprehensive views of our national 



326 . SLAVERY THE SOLE INTEREST. [April 

position, relations, necessities, and destiny, share no part of the 
attention of the gentlemen who inspire its action. What can be 
done to compose and tranquillize and harmonize the distracting 
elements of our national organization occupies no portion of their 
thoughts. The great material interests of the country are wholly 
overlooked in their speculations. ISTo attempt is made to 
strengthen the foundation of our institutions by inculcating the 
maxims of justice, liberty, equality ; none to nourish a genuine 
patriotism by showing the value and magnitude of our example 
as a liberty-loving people to the nations in bondage. The Ad- 
ministration has ignored its proper function and legitimate duties, 
and entered upon the ignoble employment of taking up and 
petting the institution of African slavery. To this institution it 
devotes itself. 

It has espoused its cause with animation and heartiness. It 
champions it with messages and proclamations. It vigilantly 
proclaims its intention to defend every inch of territory on 
which it stands, and to see that no obstacle is interposed to its 
further spread. It denounces all its opponents as enemies to the 
Union, and those who would prevent its extension into free ter- 
ritory as rebels and traitors to the Government. 

In such employments it appears to pass its days and its nights. 
Slavery would seem to be the one topic which occupies its sleep- 
ing and its waking hours. To slavery everything else is post- 
poned and deferred. The opinions and course of the Adminis- 
tration upon it are made the sole test of partisan orthodoxy 
throughout the party ranks. The party debates in Congress all 
turn upon the same hinge. 

To say nothing of the heartless wickedness of this policy, 
we contend that it is absurd and disgusting. The idea 
that we have no domestic concern worthy of the attention of 
an Administration but slavery, is a little too preposterous. 
We cannot see that it admits of any question that an admin- 
istration which can find no more appropriate occupation for 
its members, its writers, its orators, and its supporters gen- 
erally, than to be exalting, and magnifying, and caressing, and 
aiming to spread an institution that has cursed with ignorance 
and sterility and decay nearly one half the States of the Union, 
should be dismissed from power summarily and with contempt. 



1856] WALKER AND NICARAGUA. 327 

The dereliction of duty involved in snch a course is sufficiently 
odious and revolting, but the littleness of it is despicable. 

J. S. P. 



NICARAGUA. 
[From the New York Tribune.] 

Washington, May 3, 1856. 

The Walker and filibuster and Cuba sympathizers are as 
nimble and restless under the news from Nicaragua as though 
they had just sat down in a tub of aquafortis. Mr. Weller is 
agog, Mr. Douglas is agog, and even General Cass is flurried by 
patriotic ardor over the prospect that the filibustering crowd 
stand a smart chance of getting pitched into the Lake Nicaragua. 
And this morning along comes a letter from that prince of diplo- 
matists, Pierre Soule, who highfalutins the topic after his usual 
fashion. He speaks of it as a drama whose " multifarious pe- 
ripetise ' ' may involve our interests deeply. 

These are but signs of the extensive ramifications and wide 
connections of this Walker movement. Walker is no lonely fil- 
ibuster in whom nobody takes an interest. He is the agent and 
pioneer of the slavery-extension leaders. His ragged host is 
their advanced guard. The moment he is imperilled there is 
suddenly manifested a most extraordinary interest in his fate 
throughout the pro-slavery ranks. There is a general rush to 
his rescue, so far as wordy declarations go. Mr. Soule speaks of 
him as " a gallant adventurer who so nobly defends the rights of 
an oppressed people. ' ' Mr. Weller puts him on the same lofty 
platform. Yet Walker's government is nothing but a military 
despotism which sustains itself by forced contributions upon a 
population impoverished by his exactions. Walker's mode of 
sustaining himself is to smoke out every fellow in the country who 
has got an extra dollar, and send a file of soldiers after him and 
command him to deliver. It was a principal part of the duty of 
Walker's squad of occupation, before he got into this last war 
with Costa Rica, to go round in small detachments and levy con- 
tributions upon everybody who had anything that could be made 
useful for the troops, whether money, food, or clothing. Nobly 
defending the "rights of an oppressed people !" Why, he has 
been engaged in doing nothing ever since he got to Nicaragua, 



328 FILIBUSTERS APPREHENSIVE. [May 

but squeezing dry every poor devil in the country of bis last shil- 
ling. Stores have been shut up, men of means have hurried off 
with what they could carry ; others have hid their possessions so 
far as they could, and general fright and consternation have 
seized the people in consequence of his forced levies. They are 
whipped and imprisoned if they withhold anything, and they 
starve after yielding up everything. This robbery and brigand- 
age Soule calls " defending the rights of an oppressed people." 

In all these slavery-extension schemes the backers and pro- 
moters at home are absurd and extravagant in their positions and 
language to a degree that discloses the intense eagerness of their 
desires and the alarm they feel lest their plans should miscarry. 
This Walker movement is thus regarded with the deepest interest 
by the Propagandists, because it is not only a scheme to reduce 
Central America and convert it into Slave States to be annexed 
to the Union, but because it is designed as the base of operations 
against Cuba. Cuba is the great prize they are after, and Nica- 
ragua and Central America are stepping-stones on the way to it. 

The intercepted correspondence which Walker has sent here 
to show that the British Government has furnished Costa Rica 
with arms (it is not the first time she has done it), causes very 
wry faces among the parties interested in his success. They feel 
very belligerent, but since the Russian war is over they are a 
little cautious about ventilating their wrath. Their indignation 
is chiefly vented in scowls. They know that the slavery exten- 
sion scheme can only be carried out piecemeal, surreptitiously, 
and by preserving peace with the Great Powers. " The cat loves 
fish, but dares not wet her foot." The Propagandists, eager 
as they are to subjugate the continent to the sway of the 
slave power, are nevertheless compelled to keep the peace. They 
hate to be checked and curbed by interference from any quarter, 
but they cannot afford to be bellicose about it. They can only 
growl and submit. And although the " multifarious peripetiae " 
of the movement may turn out to be very repugnant to their 
aims and desires, they have to grin and bear it. We doubt 
whether even that ardent and pugnacious gentleman who did not 
get Cuba when he went to Spain after it, would advise war as a 
means to rectify the tangential discordance of the " multifarious 
peripetiae" of the drama in progress. J. S. P. 



1856] DEMOCRACY DISCORDANT. 329 

INCOHERENCE OF THE SLAVERY-EXTENSION PARTY. 
[From the New York Tribune.'] 

Washington, Wednesday, May 7, 1856. 
The discussion in the Senate on Tuesday, chiefly confined to 
friends of the Administration, afforded very emphatic testi- 
mony to the fact that the elements which compose the great pro- 
slavery party are very discordant, and that nothing but external 
opposition prevents it from breaking in pieces. The National 
Democratic organization is a compound of all sorts of hostile 
interests, and is daily becoming more speckled in its character. 
In this discussion on internal improvements to which we have 
alluded, the South and West were in direct hostility, the South- 
ern wing of the party being as of old strict constructionists, while 
the fresh and growing and interested West believe in no constitu- 
tional hindrance to their having liberal appropriations for their 
varied uses. Mr. Cass has long striven to walk the crack which 
divides the Southern and Western divisions of the party on this 
question, and has generally only succeeded in being laughed at for 
his pains. The younger Western men, as they come upon the 
stage, are disposed to be far less restrained in their action, and 
to reflect the immediate wishes of their constituents, by insisting 
upon a rejection of the ancient Southern doctrine of lack of con- 
stitutional power to improve the great commercial channels and 
highways of trade. This fundamental diversity of sentiment 
upon a subject of radical and increasing consequence must result 
in a disruption of the political connection between the Southern 
and Western wings of the Democratic organization so soon as the 
subsidence of the slavery issue shall allow of the consideration 
of any other topic. In fact, on every political question but sla- 
very, the differences of opinion — within the ranks of the Demo- 
cratic organization as now constituted, being made up as it is of 
Southern Whigs, Southern N ulliners, Northern Straight Whigs, 
intense Hunkers and Old Fogies generally — are just as great as 
between wholly antagonistic parties. Whoever thinks, therefore, 
that the so-called Democratic party is a party grounded upon 
unanimity of sentiment in regard to constitutional construction 
or administrative policy touching our greatest domestic ques- 
tions, aside from slavery, is totally in error. And whoso believes 
it can administer this Government for any length of time before 



330 DISINTEGRATION THREATENED. [May 

falling into disintegration from the want of affiliation among its 
elements, is alike mistaken. The only bond of union in the 
Democratic organization is slavery. It is merely a party for the 
defence and extension of the system of servile in opposition to 
free labor. When from any cause this issue becomes subordi- 
nated, or becomes repugnant to the public sense, the party, as a 
national organization, must go to pieces. It is indeed impossi- 
ble it should long continue the dominant party under any cir- 
cumstances. If it be defeated at the next general election, its 
power and prestige will be infallibly destroyed. If it succeeds, 
its objects are so hostile and will prove so fatal to the free labor 
of the North, that the masses of its own ranks in the Free States 
will turn and rend it into fragments. The system of servile 
labor, which the party now champions with an inhuman as well 
is an unwise zeal, will directly conflict with the interests of the 
laboring classes in the Free States. And when this is perceived 
and felt by the masses, the party will crumble like untempered 
/mortar. The interests of Northern free and Southern slave labor 
are not identical, and cannot be rendered harmonious. One con- 
flicts with the other, and will do so till the collision ceases. The 
reeking mass of free labor, sweltering under its burdens, stops 
not to philosophize or interrogate political actions closely, so long 
as it has room and verge enough, and feels no external pressure 
from conflicting systems of industry. But when once the path 
of that mass is crossed, when once it finds obstructions to its 
spread, when offensive antagonisms in the shape of coerced and 
degraded industry surround it, holding their place under the lash 
of a proud and haughty aristocracy, then will the ebullition of 
that mass overflow those obstructions and antagonisms like red- 
hot lava. The great error of policy on the part of the present 
managers of the Democratic party consists in their failure to rec- 
ognize the bearings and results of their own schemes of slavery 
extension. They are mole-eyed and blind to the operation of 
the primary laws which control all great political movements and 
give direction to the broad current of affairs. Not one of them 
has ever risen to the contemplation of the fundamental causes of 
national development, investigated those of national decline, or 
cast their glance forward or back an inch beyond the passing 
hour. They are simply men of the hour, without ideas, who deal 



1856] CASS AND SQUATTER SOVEREIGNTY. 331 

only in material facts. They dwell in the little political tub of 
their own construction, and fail to see the universe beyond. 
They are mere journeymen tinkers, at work upon the little dams 
and dikes which inclose seething elements of whose power to sweep 
away their childish guards they seem not to have the faintest 
conception. It is not such short-sighted men who lay the foun- 
dation of permanent parties or dig the channels for public 
affairs. They are botchers of work, bad workmen whose blun- 
ders must be repaired or end in disaster and ruin. The present 
attempt to abridge the area of free labor and extend slavery is 
fatuity in judgment as well as a grave offence against freedom 
and humanity. If the rising members of the Democratic organi- 
zation shall know no better than to place reliance upon these 
mere prosecuting attorneys, these pettifoggers of affairs, great is 
to be their disappointment hereafter when they shall expect per- 
manence of success in their political career. What is called the 
Democratic party was never so critically situated as at this hour. 
Defeat or success is alike fatal to it ; success will be even 
worse than defeat. For the objects it now seeks, the measures 
it now advocates, the principles upon which it now acts, are so 
hateful in themselves, so anti-democratic, so at war with the in- 
terests of free labor, that in making them the basis of a future 
career of the party, confusion and dissensions must arise winch 
will split it into a thousand fragments. J. S. P. 



ME. CASS. 
[From the New York Tribune.] 

Washington, May 12, 1856. 
Mr. Cass began to-day a post-mortem examination of squatter 
sovereignty. He was its father and will be its undertaker. Mr. 
Cass has had several previous pulls at the same question, but he 
seems to have never made an exposition satisfactory to himself, 
or one that will stay made. But squatter sovereignty has served 
its purpose and is of no account now any way. It was a stepping- 
stone pitched into the water to enable the Northern Democracy 
to pass over on dry land from the doctrines of freedom to those 
of slavery. The party has crossed the dividing waters, and it 



332 A TEXAS KNOW-NOTHING. [May 

is useless labor now to look back and dwell upon the contrivance 
by which the passage was accomplished. 

A fly in the belly of a toad might as well try to resist his 
speckled devourer as for the Northern leaders of the Democratic 
organization to resist the control of that power into whose em- 
brace they have thrown themselves. The flounderings of Mr. 
Cass and what few confederates may join him on squatter sov- 
ereignty are thus practically of no more account than the squirm- 
ing of eels in a basket. Slavery or freedom must rule in the 
territories, and not squatter sovereignty. Yet while the doom 
of the old sinners is fixed, they being sold to the cloven hoof, sal- 
vation can, and we believe will, come through a holy revival 
among the masses of the Radical Democracy. Though the rights 
of the Free States and the interests of free labor have been sold 
out to slavery, the sovereign people of the North have not yet 
ratified the bargain. It is to be seen if they will. J. S. P. 



CASS AND BUCHANAN. 
[From the New York Tribune.'] 

"Washington, May 13, 1856. 

Mr. Evans, of Texas, the Know-nothing member of that 
State, talked an hour to-day on general topics. I listened to him 
till he upset the doctrine of Mr. Jefferson that " All men are born 
free and equal," by the statement that it could not be true, 
since the half -savage and wholly naked Hottentot was unequal 
to Franklin, Washington, Adams & Co. Probably this never 
occurred to the author of the Declaration of Independence. If 
it had, it is quite unlikely he would have fallen into the error of 
making that very stupid observation. 

The Senator from Michigan concluded his rambling essay 
to-day. It exhibited all those characteristics which mark the 
productions of this gentleman. It was a sort of sea-serpent in 
the sea of Kansas discussion. Probably no two observers would 
describe it exactly alike, its length only excepted. 

Seriously, Mr. Cass took up the cudgels in behalf of Presi- 
dent Pierce this morning, and defended him for two hours 
against the attack of Mr. Seward. He seems to have associated 



1856] EXACTIONS OF SLAVERY. 333 

himself with the effort to enslave Kansas by force, and to sustain 
all the outrageous proceedings against that Territory set on foot 
by the Administration and their border-ruffian allies. Mr. Cass 
was expected to do better ; but when did he ever stand up to the 
mark and j>lay a manly part ? 

Mr. Glancy Jones occupied some time in a personal explana- 
tion to-day which was simply a defence of the consistency and 
nationality of Mr. Buchanan : in other words, a humiliation in 
the grand confessional of the slave power. To be a Northern 
man and have Northern opinions is reckoned to be such an 
offence that every haste is made by every Democratic candidate 
for the Presidency or his friends to exonerate all such from the 
foul charge. The apologies which are made by Northern men 
for having entertained sentiments favorable to freedom make a 
man blush to own himself a citizen of the Free States. It is 
hard to find a lower deep than has been reached in one case or 
another. J. S. P. 



NORTHERN DEMORALIZATION. 

[From the Neto York Tribune.] 

Washington, May 14, 1856. 

The shameless tergiversation of Northern men on the subject 
of slavery is a spectacle to make angels weep. It is needless to 
enumerate instances in detail. They malignantly dot the surface 
of the Free States like pustules on a small-pox patient. 

Southern slavery has become the great god before which the 
army of place-seekers bow down with abject submission. It oc- 
cupies the seats of power, and robes and unrobes official digni- 
taries in all the plenitude of imperial majesty. It issues its bulls 
of excommunication with the authority of the Vatican. It saves 
and it damns with more than papal promptness and zeal. Its 
mandates issue, and the trembling herd of its obedient followers 
rushes in skurried alacrity to obey. This is no figure of speech ; 
it is sober and exact truth. Behold what slavery has demanded 
of Northern men in the way of eating their words and swallow- 
ing their opinions, and behold what it has got. Let the record 
be examined. There was a time, and no distant time either, 
when all parties in the North expressed their condemnation of 



334 NORTHERN DEFECTIONS. [May 

slavery. It was condemned without qualification, and a manly 
stand taken against its spread. Every eminent and every unem- 
inent man in the Free States declared against its being carried 
into free territory. There is not a man in the North who has 
a political record, which is not clear and emphatic on this point. 
All men and all parties in all the Free States upheld the Wil- 
mot Proviso a few years ago. While most of them declared 
against agitation and against molesting the institution in the 
States, even by discussion, the expression of determination to re- 
sist its spread into free territory was universal. Search the 
record, and it will be found that every prominent man's position 
was identical on this point. The gathering up and exposing the 
attitude of this man and that on the question in times past, 
which the House has been occupied about of late, is labor lost. 
The record of all is alike. Ten years ago not one Northern man 
was as debauched as the entire body of leaders of the Democratic 
party is now. Ten years ago the North unanimously occupied 
the ground now maintained by the anti-Nebraska men. Who- 
ever does not hold it now has fallen from his former position and 
apostatized from his former faith. It is idle to enumerate indi- 
vidual examples. Every Northern man who does not occupy 
the anti-Nebraska ground to-day is a deserter from the side of 
freedom to that of slavery, and goes to swell the reeking mass of 
political apostasy that now offends the moral sense of every up- 
right man. Look back and around and see the individual monu- 
ments of this most lamentable defection. Behold Mr. Webster, 
himself at one time a light shining in the path of the Wilmot 
Provisoists. Behold Mr. Cass, ponderously rolling into the Sen- 
ate with a Wilmot Proviso speech in his hat, which he was only 
saved by an accident from delivering. Look at Mr. Buchanan, 
holding to the Missouri restriction, and declaring it holy and 
sacred as the constitution. See New Hampshire, headed by 
Franklin Pierce, outright and rank in declaring against the 
spread of slavery. Read the resolutions of every Northern State 
to the same purport, passed with the consent of all sides and ema- 
nating from all sides. Even in the South, the voice for the 
same general doctrine was potent with its nobler spirits. Hearken 
to that of Henry Clay, as late as 1S50, uttered in the Senate of 
the United States. There, with flushed countenance and an eye 



1856] HUMILIATING EXAMPLES. 335 

of fire, rising in his place, lie proclaimed with defiant gesticula- 
tion and impassioned tones, to a breathless and silent Senate, that 
he never would consent to admit slavery into territory now tree — 
never. Contrast all this and volumes more of the same kind, 
which the history of the past few years can furnish, with the 
state of opinion now upon the subject, and weep over the humil- 
iating record. 

And this is all done for what ? For place ; for official hon- 
ors ; for a temporary lease of high station ; for a day of authority. 
Here they go and there they go. From every Free State, and 
from every county of every Free State, the examples of this 
deep humiliation crowd forward with a disgraceful alacrity. 
They come from hill and valley. High and low throng in supple 
subserviency around the throne of slavery. They are called 
upon to disavow and repent of every sentiment in favor of free- 
dom they ever expressed, and they do it. They apostatize from 
the faith of their fathers. They repudiate their principles. 
They renounce their opinions. They learn, embrace, and repeat 
the catechism of the power at whose feet they cower. They 
begin, " I believe in one political god, and that god is slavery. 
I will not resist nor obstruct his sway. I will perform his service 
according as I shall be ordered. I will set up the symbols of 
his worship in every office I shall hold under him." They are 
thus compelled to cleanse themselves of every taint and suspicion 
of hostility to slavery before being admitted to the service of a 
country whose proudest boast is the declaration of human free- 
dom and the equality of human rights. 

Thus general has the demoralization become under the 
haughty exactions of an oligarchy striving to trample all opposi- 
tion to it under its feet. Can the Democratic masses tolerate it ? 
Can they endorse by their votes an apostasy so vast, so humili- 
ating, so alarming ? J. S. P. 



[From our Special Correspondent.] 

Washington, Monday, May 19, 1856. 
The leading event of the day is the oration of Mr. Sumner. 
He spoke three hours without finishing, and was attentively 
listened to throughout by a crowded audience. Mr. Sumner has 



336 SUMNER'S SPEECH. [May 

given long and laborious attention to the composition of this 
production, and it will raise his already elevated reputation. He 
made a number of happy hits in the course of his remarks, and 
his defence and exposition of the Emigrant Aid Association, 
and associative enterprises in general, was particularly strong and 
complete. It was a little curious to watch the manner in which 
Mr. Sumner's effort was received. At the beginning, when 
everybody else was listening very attentively, Mr. Mason, of 
Virginia, Mr. Douglas, Mr. Toucey, and Mr. Toombs took to 
writing letters with wonderful industry, all seemingly very intent 
upon the subject matter of their epistolary correspondence. 
They, however, recovered from their lit of letter-writing after a 
while, and became quite natural as the speech went on. Then 
again quite a number of the pro-slavery men undertook at various 
intervals to show their indifference to the course of Mr. Sumner's 
argument, or their disapprobation of the boldness of his remarks, 
by talking in the Chamber in such a way as to compel the pre- 
siding officer several times to call them to order. Once, indeed, 
Mr. Sumner himself stopped and called on the Sergeant-at-Arms 
to preserve quiet. In this small way the antagonists of Mr. 
Sumner prefer to meet and treat him. The interruptions, to be 
sure, amounted to nothing ; but they disclosed the spirit of veil 
omous hostility which slavery everywhere exhibits towards free 
speech. Ten miles from this city in any direction Mr. Sumner 
would not be permitted to talk in the way he did to-day without 
being a victim to Lynch law. It is hard for the slavery men 
to be decent in conduct while listening to sentiments which they 
would not permit the expression of at home without counselling 
the doom of death upon the speaker, and for the utterance of 
which his life would certainly be taken without stopping for 
judge or jury. Indeed, one Southern Senator to-day declared 
that if he could have his way he would hang Sumner on the 
spot. Such is the condition of things in this Republic, and such 
the violent antagonisms of our system. It was impossible to help 
asking one's self while Mr. Sumner was heaping his denunciations 
upon the villanies practised under its inspiration, Of what use is 
it to assail even the proceedings of the conspirators against free- 
dom in Kansas before this body, so large a majority of which is 
composed of the high priests of slavery ? Or why waste time or 



1856] LETTER FROM HORACE GREELEY. 337 

breath in appealing to its members for justice or even decency 
toward that devoted and unhappy Territory ? What better is it 
than preaching against sin in the lower regions, or appealing to 
the devil to set up a Sunday-school in pandemonium ? Why 
inveigh against the ruthless efforts to make Kansas a slave State 
to men who mean to see it baptized in the blood and the fire of 
civil conflict sooner than move one inch toward rescuing it from 
its invaders and oppressors ? One cannot contemplate the ques- 
tion without feeling that the battle must be fought on another 
field. It is before the people of the Free States, face to face, 
that the question of Kansas, and the story of her wrongs, and the 
turpitude of her betrayers, should be and must be presented and 
considered. And there it should be determined whether the 
proceedings complained of should be submitted to. If the 
people of the Free States should say aye to that, then let them 
hug their chains and prepare for that further debasement which 
will be their due and their doom. But if they say no, then let 
the energy of this expression of their determination be so pro- 
nounced as to cleanse the pollution from the skirts of every branch 
of the Government. The Free States can save themselves and 
save the Territories if they will. But they also, and they alone, 
can throw all away, install the slave power in a seat from which 
even they cannot eject it, and crown it King over South and 
North alike. It is for them to say what they will do in this 
great crisis of the national fate. 

Of course, Mr. Sumner's speech is full, comprehensive, and 
embracing every aspect of the great question he discusses. 
What he has not said to-day he will say to-morrow. He will 
soon be followed by Mr. Wade, whose radical views are well 
known, but who is yet in no particular in advance of the temper 
of the times.* J. S. P. 



[From Horace Greeley.] 

New York, May 21, 1856. 
Dear Pike : We don't consider Judge McLean quite S. O. G. here ; 
but if you know any facts making in favor of his orthodoxy, please 

* It was this speech for which Sumner was assaulted in his seat by Preston 
Brooks. 



338 LETTER FROM CHARLES A. DANA. [May 

send them on, and they shall be duly considered. Considering how 
forcibly you have written in favor of having a candidate of whose zeal 
and fidelity there could be no dispute, we feel that there is something 
that needs explaining in your recent zeal for McLean. Friend Pike, do 
you know that is a Delilah of a town in which you chance just now to 
be lodged ? Have you heard that it is unfavorable to the rigidity and 
perpendicularity of backbone ? Do you know that men have gone there 
honest and come away rascals ? Have you heard that a virtue less savage 
than mine would hardly have been proof against its manifold and per- 
sistent seductions ? Beware, O friend and compatriot ! 

Yours, Horace Greeley. 

J. S. Pike, Esq. 



[From Charles A. Dana.] 

New York, May 21, 1856. 

Immortal Pike : Don't growl about an old fogy like McLean. One 
of the first of duties is to get rubbish out of the way. He belongs 
decidedly to that category. With you, I don't care who is the candi- 
date so it isn't a marrowless old lawyer whose mind has illustrated itself 
by so many perverse and perverting decisions. 

Why don't you stick to your original idea in going to Washington 
— that of getting some straight-out man nominated ? For a fellow who 
started with that virtuous purpose, it seems to me you have deteriorated. 
You ought to rejoice at the interment of such a candidate rather than 
shed tears by the quart where he is done for. 

Heaven bless you, old chap. 

Yours, C. A. D. 

P. S. — I enclose a note from the patriotic Horace. 



THE OUTRAGE ON MR. SUMNER. 
[From the Neio York Tribune.] 

"Washington, May 22, 1856. 
The outrage upon Mr. Sumner is the engrossing topic of con- 
versation. No assault could have been more brutal or more 
cowardly ; but it must not be regarded as an occurrence which is 
to be rendered more rare simply by exposure and criticism. 
The state of things here and everywhere in the country where 



1856] PRESTON BROOKS ASSAULTS SUMNER. 339 

slavery and freedom are to come into immediate conflict is to 
grow worse and not better. It is idle to suppose that improve- 
ment will come merely by reason of censure of such an event as 
occurred to-day. It is justified on the ground that no man 
should be plain-spoken on slavery and its supporters, and that 
such speech should be suppressed by violence. This is the rule 
in the slave-holding districts of the Union, and as the General 
Government is succumbing, or, to speak more properly, has suc- 
cumbed to the slave power, the rule of the Slave States, which 
is silence on the subject, is to be enforced here and everywhere. 
Northern men, in the quiet of their homes, will say this is too 
much to believe. Of course it is, and they have disbelieved. 
But Kansas is telling the story of slavery, and Washington now 
echoes it. It is absurd, therefore, to indulge in mere denuncia- 
tion of even so monstrous an offence as the assailing of a Senator 
in his seat for words spoken in debate against the spread of 
slavery, and belaboring him with a bludgeon whose blows might 
have caused instant death ; for it is considered exemplary treat- 
ment of such an offence by the leaders of the slavery-extension 
movement. Doubtless Mr. Toombs, who so complacently wit- 
nessed the affray, thought, "Well, this hastens the day when I 
shall call the roll of my slaves on Bunker Hill." And Mr. 
Douglas, who either was present or came in before the tragedy 
was complete, no doubt amiably felt that the process of subdu- 
ing opposition to slavery extension was being properly carried 
out on the floor of the Senate. J. S. P. 



SUBDUING FREEDOM. 

[From the New York Tribune.'] 

Washington, May 23, 1856. 

Probably a majority of the members of Congress went to 
their seats armed to-day. This is simply evidence of a state of 
barbarism or a state of war, or of both. The South is at war 
against the North for trying to prevent the spread of slavery, 
and the habits of many of her citizens are the habits of barba- 



340 ATTACK ON SUMNER. [May 

rians. The fighting element is predominant there, and it is the 
only one they cultivate. It seems extraordinary to Northern 
civilization that a man who is of sufficient distinction to be 
elected to Congress should choose a life of broil, should assume 
the bearing of a man bent perpetually on getting up a row or a 
fight. Yet such is the character of some of the Southern repre- 
sentatives, and such are the men who lead and champion the 
movements for the extension of slavery. Northern men here 
are thus thrown into a position which exacts a line of conduct 
quite foreign to their ordinary habits. There is a disposition in 
Congress to accommodate itself to this necessity, which the ex- 
igencies of the battle seem to require. 

The excitement in regard to the attack on Mr. Sumner has 
hardly abated in the least. A crowd went to the Senate and 
House to-day as Spanish crowds flock to a bull-fight, in expecta- 
tion of something in that line. But they were not gratified. 
The Senate was full, dignified, and tame. Mr. Wilson gave a 
narrative of the occurrence of the day before, and left to other 
and older Senators to propose action thereon. A pause ensued, 
and the President of the Senate was proceeding to the regular 
business before the Senate, when Mr. Seward, seeing no one 
else disposed to move, offered the resolution which was adopted. 
The committee it proposed to raise was voted by the Senate, and 
its members taken wholly from the " Democratic" side of the 
Chamber. Its composition was inspired by Weller, Douglas, 
and Mason, and was intended as a discourtesy and insult to the 
opposition. 

The slavery-extension men are determined to slight, crowd, 
and exasperate their opponents all they can. But if they humili- 
ate them it will be the fault of the anti-slavery men themselves. 
There is a general conspiracy all round to "subdue" all who 
venture to question the god-like character of slavery. It takes 
the form of personal assaults on individuals, in addition to po- 
litical disfranchisement, and it may be expected to end in assassi- 
nation. The conflict is real, though quiet people may not appre- 
ciate it, and if the party of slavery succeed in their present arro- 
gant determination, it requires no great stretch of vision to see 
that the Union will sooner or later go to pieces in consequence. 

The scene in the Senate to-day was humiliating. Not a man 



1856] ACTION OF SENATE AND HOUSE. 341 

of that whole body rose to express the emphatic and patriotic 
indignation that is everywhere felt over the outrage upon a mem- 
ber, and the desecration of that Chamber by the violent and 
bloody proceedings of yesterday. A member of the American 
Senate, sitting in his seat, had been struck down and left welter- 
ing in his own blood, and no man rose to vindicate the sanctity 
of the body, to condemn the outrage, or reprove the act. Was 
it lack of spirit or boldness, or what was it ? 

In the House, Mr. Campbell, very resolutely and in a manner 
which occasioned much commendation on the floor, pushed 
through a resolution of inquiry in the case, which prevailed by 
28 majority. Mr. Clingman stoutly opposed it. Mr. Brooks 
tried to get the floor, and seemed quite excited ; and when the 
previous question was called on the resolution, a violent but brief 
eifort was made to kill it by factious opposition. After a little 
time the hostility calmed down, and the extreme Southern men, 
deeming discretion the better part of valor, relinquished their op- 
position — being, however, sustained in it to the last by a few 
Northern doughfaces. 

The President sent a message to the House to-day in answer 
to the inquiry respecting the movement of troops upon Lawrence. 
It simply referred to the accompanying documents from the War 
Department. Mr. Jeff. Davis, who administers that branch of 
the Government, takes the opportunity to insult the House by 
referring to its phraseology, in the resolution, in a contemptuous 
manner. The House asked what had been done by the army in 
the way of enforcing the supposed laws of the supposed Kansas 
Legislature. Mr. Davis replies by telling us what has been x done 
toward enforcing the laws of the ' ' real Legislature of Kansas. ' ' 
Slavery is on its high horse in every official quarter, and treats all 
opposition — even that of Congress — with a lofty disdain. We 
have come to the era of not only plantation manners but planta- 
tion discipline. It is the latter which it is expected will "sub- 
due " the North. J. S. P. 



342 BENTON'S COMMENTS. [May 

[From Governor Seward.] 

Washington, May 26, 1856. 
My Dear Pike : I hand the accompanying manuscript to you in 
compliance with the request of the author, whose letter herewith will 
show his object. A glance through it satisfies me that it has points. 
Please preserve it in such a form that I can send it back if it is not in 
your power to be useful to the author. 

Faithfully yours, William H. Seward. 

J. S. Pike, Esq. 



ATTACK ON SUMNER. 

[From the Neio To?-k Tribune^ 

Washington, May 28, 1856. 
Before Mr. Benton went away, lie remarked upon the assault 
on Sumner, saying : ' ' This is not an assault, sir, it is a conspir- 
acy ; yes, sir, a conspiracy. These men hunt in couples, sir. It 
is a conspiracy, and the North should know it." To what ex- 
tent the allegation is true may be partially discovered by the in- 
vestigations of the House Committee, though, of course, all 
secrets that should not be disclosed it will be impossible to come 
at, except inferentially and by indirection. The tone of the 
Southern press, which is really the best exponent of Southern 
opinions, and the bold avowal of Mr. Toombs on the floor of the 
Senate, are alike indicative of unity of feeling and purpose on 
the part of the slavery men, and imply very conclusively that 
the attempt to abridge the freedom of speech in Congress is no 
merely individual affair. The work, it is fair to presume, is 
done with concert and knowledge. And it is of no use to dis- 
guise the fact that for the moment the late attempt in this line 
has met with partial success. Whoever has observed the course 
of things in both branches cannot doubt it. A species of terror- 
ism has been instituted, and to some extent has prevailed. This 
is illustrated by the calling to account of numerous individuals 
for commenting upon the transaction which has brought about 
the present state of things. This category, it is stated, embraces 
Mr. Chaffee, of Massachusetts, Mr. Campbell, of Ohio, Colonel 
"Webb, and even Mr. Crittenden, all of whom, if report speaks 
truly, have been already called upon to deny, excuse, or justify 



1856] NORTHERN INDIGNATION. 343 

their comments thereon ; in a word, to give an account of them- 
selves for their criticisms upon an event which is making the 
country ring with censure and denunciation. The effect is also 
seen in the tone of the newspapers here, and especially that of 
the Intelligencer. How this attempt at suppression of free 
speech will end, even here, cannot be doubted. If the waters be 
for an instant dammed, it will only be to pour in greater volume 
when they mount the obstructions placed to confine them. Free 
speech in Congress and out will be maintained, though the 
means of maintaining it are quite inefficient and inadequate to 
the exigencies of the occasion. The bold demonstrations of 
Messrs. Wade and "Wilson in the Senate yesterday are an earnest 
of what may be expected. Let them then have the full credit 
of what they did in being the first to break the spell of silence in 
Congress. 

No Northern man has any business to object to a compromise 
on the slavery question except he be willing to draw the sword 
in defence of freedom. The maintenance of freedom, when op- 
posed by its antagonist forces, always required the baptism of 
blood. It is as true now of it as it ever was. 

The North just now is very lively with its indignation and 
denunciation over the state of things in Kansas and in "Washing- 
ton. "We have no doubt it will continue so till after the Presi- 
dential election, and until Northern doughfaceism on the Ne- 
braska-Kansas bill is swept away like rubbish throughout the 
Free States. But Northern indignation is a very uncertain force. 
It comes in gusts, is very powerful at times, but it subsides. 
The cares of the world and the temptations of the devil consume 
it after a little. It will be a great thing, we know, for the op- 
ponents of slavery to get possession of the Executive Govern- 
ment of the nation, always providing we have a man of nerve 
for President. If we are going to install another nobody, like 
the present incumbent, who is only zealous in his weaknesses, the 
triumph will amount to nothing. But this triumph is a small 
matter when regarded from a high point of observation. It 
does not touch the essential elements of the great disorder which 
afflicts and threatens our national unity. J. S. P. 



344 LETTER FROM HORACE GREELEY. [June 

[Prom Horace Greeley.] 

New York, May 30, 1856. 

Friend Pike : You get on very well in most respects ; but your legs 
are not of equal length. One is longer or shorter than t'other — I can't 
determine which. In fact, I suspect they must be travelling in opposite 
directions. I distrust that which has got on to disunion more than 
that which has hobbled back to McLeanism ; yet the former has far 
more of my sympathy. When we are ready to dissolve the Union 
for Liberty's sake, the South will not let us do it. She will come down, 
like Capt. Scott's coon. So let us off on disunion for the present. 

Now do me a favor. I want to know, if possible, on what the 
story is founded that Toombs threatened to call the roll of his slaves on 
Bunker Hill. I understand that he denies it. I am sure it must have 
had some foundation. Won't you ask Dr. Bailey, Goodloe, and others, 
and let me hear ? Yours, Horace Greeley. 

J. S. Pike, Esq. 



THE PEOPLE S CONVENTION. 
[From the New York Tribune.] 

Philadelphia, JuDe 16, 1856. 

A large number of delegates to the Convention to be held to- 
morrow had arrived in town yesterday. A still greater throng 
swarms around the hotels to-day. The noon train brought in 
very large accessions from the North. 

An examination of the ground during two days satisfies me 
that Mr. Fremont's nomination is inevitable. New York is con- 
tent to forego her preference for Mr. Seward, and goes almost 
unanimously for Fremont. Yet Colonel Webb as yet declines to 
concur. Mr. Thurlow Weed is more complaisant, and moves 
with the delegation from his State. 

A large portion of the delegates from Pennsylvania and New 
Jersey are in favor of Judge McLean, and press him with a 
strong belief that lie is the strongest man that can be run in those 
two States. 

Ohio is divided, some for Fremont, some for McLean, and 
more for Chase. Mr. Chase's friends, however, will, under the 
circumstances, forbear to press him, and hold a meeting to-day, 
at which they will decide not to bring him before the Convention. 



1856] PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES. 345 

Mr. Chase out of the field, their next choice is Fremont in 
preference to McLean. New England is for Fremont either 
actively or in concurrence with the general drift. There may 
be some exceptions, but they have not yet turned up. Among 
the Indiana and Illinois men there is a considerable McLean feel- 
ing, which has been deepened by the reports from the New 
York Know-nothing Convention. Ohio does not share this feel- 
ing, but is generally very determined in her opposition to Judge 
McLean, as the worst candidate that can be imposed on that pre- 
eminently anti-slavery State. Indeed the fact is not to be dis- 
guised that as a general thing the outright, progressive movement 
men are in favor of Fremont, while Mr. McLean is the candidate 
of the slow and more hunkerish part of the Convention. The 
general sentiment of all is conciliatory, and all personal prefer- 
ences are merged in the general desire to take the best man. 
That ultimately the action of the Convention will be unanimous 
there is thus no reason to doubt. 

Yery little has yet been said about a Yice-President, and 
opinion does not point strongly in any direction. Mr. Banks is 
named, but his nomination would remove him from the Speaker's 
chair, which is a contingency to be avoided. John A. King and 
Moses Grinnell have been mentioned, but New York does not 
seek to have the candidate. It is so with Pennsylvania, who has 
Judge Pollock and Governor Johnston to present if wanted. 
My own impression is that the name of the candidate has not yet 
been mentioned. 

The Convention is very large, and promises to be very enthu- 
siastic. J. S. P. 



[From Charles A. Dana.l 

New York, July 24. 
Great and Good Pike : Buchanan has totally collapsed in this 
State. He won't have any vote to speak of, and as he goes down the 
Fillmore men are proportionately elated. But here they have no sort of 
show. In New Jersey and Pennsylvania they will have a better chance. 
In the latter State an arrangement has been made which, if it doesn't 
break down, will save everything. It is to run the same electoral ticket 
with the Fillmoreites, except the first man on it, the gentlemen all to be 



346 LETTERS FROM GREELEY AND DANA. [August 

publicly pledged to vote for either Fillmore or Fremont, as either 
receives the larger popular vote. In this case only one elector of the 
twenty-eight can be lost. Weed and Covode have made it, but I doubt 
whether the malignant K. N.'s will allow it to be carried out. Greeley 
is opposed to it. 

Still, apart from all this bargaining, I think the prospect in Pennsyl- 
vania is rapidly improving. Our private accounts are all excellent, and 
indicate the mass of the Fillmore men are coming over. The truth is 
that the people are much more for us than we have supposed. I have 
been speaking around a good deal in clubs, and am everywhere astonish- 
ed at the depth and ardor of the popular sentiment. Where we least 
expect it large and enthusiastic crowds throng to the meeting and stay 
for hours with the thermometer at 100°. It is a great canvass ; for 
genuine inspiration 1840 couldn't hold a candle. I am more than ever 
convinced that Fremont was the man for us. 

At Westport it is just cool and delightful. Here in the office the 
regular range of the thermometer is 100°. 

Yours affectionately, C. A. Dana. 



[Prom Horace Greeley.] 

New York, August 6, 1856. 

Friend Pike : We Fremonters of this town have not one dollar 
where the Fillmoreans and Buchaniers have ten each, and we have 
Pennsylvania and New Jersey both on our shoulders. Each State is 
utterly miserable, so far as money is concerned ; we must supply them 
with documents, canvass them with our best speakers, and pay for their 
rooms to speak in and our bills to invite them. This is all we can do ; 
perhaps more than we shall succeed in. But so much we have under- 
taken, and we shall try. The rest must be taken care of elsewhere, or 
must go as it will. 

Your man has no business to run for Congress if he has neither the 
talent to stump the district nor the means to pay others to do so ; and 
if he fails, after such a record as Fuller has made this winter, we must 
try to do without him. But he can't fail. 

What you have to do in Madawaska is to let the Kanucks know that 
Fremont is French, and show them that he is assailed as a Roman 
Catholic. One thousand copies of Brooks's Express, with pictures of the 
Cross, etc., would be worth more than $1,000. Have you seen the Life 
we have issued ? I consider it equal to your Life of Scott ; if not in 



1856] GREELEY ON MAINE POLITICS. 347 

diction, at least in interest. If it were all over your State it could not 
help doing good. Yours, Horace Greeley. 

J. S. Pike, Esq., Calais, Maine. 



[From Charles A. Dana.] 

New York, Saturday, August 9. 

Dear Pike : Just got your screech. Delighted with it. If you 
had approved either Fremont or his Life I should have been alarmed, 
but your total condemnation quite reassures me. I notice that Garrison, 
Parker Pillsbury, S. S. Foster, and other disunionists hold the same 
language. It's alarming thus to see all the Damphools against us. Our 
course and our candidate need no other endorsement. 

Between you and me, John has ruined his chance for a foreign 
mission. He has put in his book a minute and complete account of the 
candidate's duels. We tried to stop him ; Fremont also opposed it, 
but in vain. 

Seward's awful grouty. Yours, C. A. D. 



[From Horace Greeley.] 

New York, August 13, 1856. 
Dear Pike : I am inexpressibly shocked at learning that Colonel 
Fremont and his campaign Life are not adapted to the fastidious tastes 
of your fellow-citizens. It is mortifying to fail on the very point where 
success was confidently counted on ; and we thought that in a State like 
Maine, whose greatest man is . . . and whose Republican party has 
given its best office to ... a candidate for President. . . . Had we 
been picking a man for Maine only, we should have chosen one who 
never had a father ; but, potent as Maine is, there are still other States 
to be consulted, and, in deference to their squeamish prejudices, we hit 
upon a happy compromise, which we are glad to learn renders us invin- 
cible in your vicinage without materially injuring us elsewhere. The 
French extraction of our candidate was of course contrived for your dis- 
trict only, and the pleasant mystery about his religion was likewise 
adapted to your Madawaska region expressly. You will find it worth 
more than a beggarly $1,000 in the hands of politicians who know how 
to use it. But " God sends victuals and the devil supplies cooks ;" 
and yours may spoil the broth in spite of all. We can't help that. 



348 LETTERS FROM HORACE GREELEY. [Sept. 

Let your office-beggars — who whenever we win will be as numerous as 
the frogs of Egypt, and as odious — supply what is needed for Maine. 

Yours, Horace Greeley. 

J. S. Pike, Esq. 



[From Horace Greeley.] 

New York, September 10, 1856. 

Friend Pike : I congratulate you on your success in keeping the 
Life of Fremont out of Maine. The results surpass all expectation. 
They could hardly have been improved had you got Judge McLean 
nominated at Philadelphia. 

But don't you think you might let a few of them come in now ? 
You have at least ten thousand clear majority in the State. Allowing 
each copy to turn one voter to Buchanan, you could stand four thousand 
copies. To be perfectly safe, let us say three thousand. I am sure 
you can endure that number, and it will prevent their doing mischief 
somewhere else. Yours, Horace Greeley. 

J. S. Pike, Esq., Calais, Maine. 

P. S. — With one of Choate's letters appended, I think you might get 
alone; with five thousand. G. 



[From Horace Greeley.] 

New York, September 21, 1856. 

Dear Pike : Can't you hold an election in Maine once a week till 
November ? We need it badly ; for I tell you the fight is hot and heavy 
in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Illinois. I hope these, with Cali- 
fornia, are all the doubtful Free States ; but New Jersey is poisoned 
with Fillmoreism, and it is all we can possibly do to carry it. Penn- 
sylvania, I hope, is not quite so hard ; but there is everything to do 
there, with just the meanest set of politicians to do it that you ever 
heard of. Illinois is hard fought, and if we carry it, Maine shall be 
credited with half the glory. Indiana seems to look better. 

Do hold another election the first of next month, and we'll let you 
off on the " Life." Yours, Horace Greeley. 

J. S. Pike, Esq., Calais, Me. 



1856] LETTER FROM CHARLES A. DANA. 349 

[From Charles A. Dana.] 

New York, October 5. 

Dear Pike : I don't know how many letters I owe you. The fact 
is, I never worked before this summer ; and I look forward to the com- 
mon doings after the 4th November with anticipations of repose such 
as a lazy fellow like you can have no idea of. Still, I must say I have 
enjoyed the occasional gleams and growls with which I have been favored 
from your quarter. The offer of the yellow fever caused a great stir of 
gratitude on my part which I now emphatically express, and so on. 

The political prospect brightens constantly. In this State it is hard 
to tell how big the majority will be ; I bet on fifty thousand over both 
Fillmore and Buchanan — over both together. The election in Penn- 
sylvania week after next will go by from thirty thousand to forty thou- 
sand majority against Buchanan, and so oo. The tide is rising with a 
rush as it does in the Bay of Fundy ; and you'll hear an awful squeal- 
ing among the hogs and jackasses when they come to drown. 

I've just read your letter to Horace about Banks. Banks is greasing 
his legs for 1860. Don't be afraid about Fremontism. That means 
Chase and Greeley in the administration ; besides, Fremont is as hot an 
anti-slavery man as you are. There is talk of offering you Cass's place 
at Rome on the ground of your Catholicism. Whenever the question is 
asked, I swear that you are secretly a member of the Jesuits. 

Fry is coming out as a stump speaker. His lyrical style takes 
wonderfully. People say he is eloquent, but rather too profane. The 
old fogy himself is greatly elated by his success. He goes to Penn- 
sylvania this week. I suppose there are about two hundred orators, 
great and small, now stumping that State for Fremont. The Democrats 
are terrified and demoralized. Reeder alone takes over three thousand 
voters bodily over in his district. The war is great and full of fun. 

My impression now is that every free State will vote for Fremont. 
The Tribune now sends out two hundred and eighty thousand papers 
regularly to its subscribers. C. A. D. 



New York, October 6, 1856. 

Friend Pike : I have yours of the 30th ult. 

If we win this election, we shall make Kansas a free State — that is 
all I expect as the direct fruit of the triumph. Indirectly, the victory 
will be worth a great deal, as demonstrating that Freedom can win in a 
pitched battle with Slavery, and that a man needn't be a doughface in 
order to have some show for an office. 



350 GREELEY'S COMMENTS. [Dec. 

We shall go quite as far as the public sentiment will justify ; and I 
trust that will be farther in 1858 than in 1856. But it is beaten into 
my bones that the American people are not yet anti-slavery, though I 
live in the hope that they will become so, are becoming so. Still, I 
appreciate the wisdom of Mrs. Glass's directions for hare-cooking, 
" First, catch your hare." I think you incline to begin at the other 
end. 

As to Banks's speech ; I think St. Paul on Mars Hill made a better 
— I mean, better for Mars Hill ; I am not sure that Banks's is not 
better adapted to Wall Street. T trust Banks himself does not deem 
it suited to the latitude of Bunker Hill or Tippecanoe. 

The prospect brightens. I hope we shall win. If we do, I believe 
the conquests of slavery are at an end. Its subjection is still in the 
future. Yours, Horace Greeley. 

J. S. Pike, Esq., Calais, Me. 



EVENTS LN CONGKESS. 
[From the New York Tribune.] 

"Washington, December 12, 1856. 
The second week of the session has expired, and has been 
passed in both branches in political discussion, mainly growing 
out of the President's Message. The speakers generally are 
uncommonly fluent and full, according to the measure of their 
several capacities. They are all fresh from the stump, where 
they have had ample opportunity to rehearse their speeches, and 
they are now presented here in the most compact shape possible, 
and pointed with a quiet indignation, on the Republican side, at 
the Jesuitical denunciations of the President. The temper ex- 
hibited in the discussion is marked with far less acerbity than 
could have been possible during the canvass. Here and there is 
a discourse without brains, but it is an exception. In the Senate, 
especially, the debate has been carried on apparently with a view 
to ascertain precisely the points of difference between the parties, 
and to shave off all merely declamatory excrescences of the con- 
tending champions. I have not witnessed a debate in which 
more general candor has been displayed in its conduct, and 
where more attention to its proprieties has been observed. This 
I attribute in part to the absence of two or three of the more 



1856] GREATER MODERATION. 351 

porcine members of the body, who, being apt at debate and of 
coarse grain, always do a good deal to exacerbate discussion ; 
although the most prominent reason may be found in the fact 
that the winning side feel happy in having achieved success, and 
that their arrogance is restrained by the consideration that they 
came near missing it, while on the other the desire to vindicate 
the justice and nationality of their political position, joined to 
the natural instinct of propriety that belongs to their side of the 
chamber, has lent moderation and dignity to expression. Taking 
this general fact in connection with an apparently earnest desire 
to fully understand one another's position on the exciting issue of 
the time with all its relations and all its qualifications, the dis- 
cussion has had more than ordinary interest and significance. 

We may consider that the arrogant impertinences which have 
marked the tone of debate on the Southern side in the Senate 
are for the present ended. The enormous popular vote in the 
North sustaining the champions of freedom in that body, and 
the crushing rebuke administered to the doughfaces there by an 
indignant constituency, have had a wonderful effect in producing 
this salutary change. Hereafter these insolences of debate will be 
left to the mere blackguards of the party, whose instincts never 
lead them in any other direction. 

Yesterday Mr. Cass gave us an illuminated edition of squatter 
sovereignty. We have to acknowledge that the old man has 
been stuck so full of pins by his ungrateful constituents in the 
late election that he is more than commonly wide awake. He 
flounced round with a good deal of vigor on his favorite topic. 
Indeed we are struck with the virility of the aged Senator. But 
it is one of the last flares in the socket. He did not undertake 
to make a speech, but only rose, he said, to upset Mr. Trumbull's 
interpretation of the decision of Judge Marshall in the Florida 
Admiralty case. He did what he could, which was not much, 
and wound up that portion of his remarks with censuring the 
decision itself — thus showing that he was far from being satisfied 
with his own exposition of its true bearing. 

Mr. Cass went on, and instead of speaking fifteen minutes as 
he proposed, made a speech of an hour and a half. I have 
long observed that the speeches which are intended to be short, 
and come of a full stock of the materials belonging to the sub- 



352 CASS'S ILLUMINATED EDITION. [Dec. 

ject discussed, are always the best. When a man undertakes to 
tell all he knows on any subject, he is always tedious. Thus set 
speeches generally bore rather than please. 

On the whole, the week has worn away without being barren 
of results. The discussions have smoothed some rough places, 
and brushed away some clouds and mist. The whole horizon 
begins to brighten up, and I think there will be a clear held for 
operations to commence in about a fortnight, more or less. 

J. S. P. 



New York, December 14, 1856. 
Dear Pike : You're right about . . . and I have been all the week 
putting a stopper on him. If he is not more quiet now, I shall cut his 
head off. He's a smart fool — one of the same sort of animals as . . . 
Somehow, we are greatly exposed to them at Washington. 

I wish you would get Page's report of the River Plata, and do it up. 
Yours truly, C. A. Dana. 

P. S. — I enclose also a letter from Governor Stevens for you to 
write a reply to. It is a fight of yours originally, and you may as well 
follow it up. I put in with it a copy of the letter to which it replies. 
If you are too lazy for the job, send both back to me— indeed, you had 
better do that anyway. 



SLAVERY AND THE SUPREME COURT. 
[From the New York Tribune.] 

Washington, December 18, 1856. 
The case now before the Supreme Court involving the con- 
stitutionality of the slavery restriction clause of the Missouri 
Compromise goes on with increased interest among all who re- 
flect upon the importance of the decision which may be made. 
Not that a decision of the main point will be made. This is 
not, by any means, reduced to a certainty. The Court may 
think it wise, under the existing circumstances of excitement on 
the topic throughout the country, to place a decision of the case 
upon a subordinate issue. Yet the urgency of the slave power is 
g rea t_the temper of the slave-holder within the bar and without 
the bar, to say nothing of the bench, is roused to crush the re- 



1856] ARGUMENT OF REVERDT JOHNSON. 353 

bellious spirit of the North, and a decision of the Supreme Court 
is eagerly desired which shall promote this end. Prudence may, 
however, prevail, and the Court refrain from enunciating a de- 
cision which would neither enhance its reputation nor strengthen 
its influence. 

To-day was given to Reverdy Johnson, who occupied the 
entire sitting of the Court by an argument marked by his 
usual characteristics, interspersed by that personal interest and 
fervid dogmatism always manifested by Southern slave-holders 
whenever they treat the negro question. Mr. Johnson's argu- 
ment was well considered, compact, and about as remarkable for 
what it did not contain as for what it did. He steered clear of 
several modern heresies of constitutional interpretation, while he 
embraced others of a general character with alacrity. Thus he 
declared that " Slavery promises to exist through all time, so far 
as human vision can discover;" and further, that it may turn 
out, and not improbably will, that "the extension of slavery on 
this continent is the only thing which will preserve the constitu- 
tional freedom we now enjoy. ' ' Yet while he did not rush to the 
extreme Southern ground that the Constitution carries slavery 
into the Territories, he yet went far enough to satisfy the South- 
ern pro-slavery party, with which he has lately identified himself. 
In denying the colored race all claims to citizenship, which he 
did with expressions and manners of supercilious disdain, which 
cannot be counterfeited by any man outside the ranks of the 
born slave-holders and aristocrats ; in his sneers upon Lord Mans- 
field's language in the Somerset case — in which that distinguished 
jurist pronounced one of the noblest decisions ever made by any 
court, and which will live in undying lustre when the memory 
of the whole present race of judicial oppressors shall have rotted 
and been forgotten — Mr. Johnson amply justified his fitness for 
the service in which it is understood he voluntered in the present 
case. 

No one can have failed to observe, in the growth and develop- 
ment of the ideas which underlie the case now under adjudica- 
tion, that our judicial decisions upon constitutional questions 
touching the subject of slavery are rapidly coming to be the 
enunciation of mere party dogmas ; that the country is dividing 
geographically upon questions of constitutional law, and that in 



354 THE POINT OF COLLISION. [Dec. 1856 

the process of time, if we continue a united people, what the law 
of the country and the Courts is will depend upon the political 
ascendency for the time being of the doctrines of freedom or of 
slavery. It is manifest that an antagonism of doctrine upon the 
question of slavery will divide the Court as it has divided the 
churches, and that while the latter are allowed to separate, the 
former are held together by a political tie that will necessitate the 
decision of cases by the mere power of majorities. What under 
one administration may be declared to be sound constitutional in- 
terpretation is to be totally repudiated under another. If the 
Supreme Court were to-day to decide that Congress had no power 
over slavery in the Territories, the decision would be simply a 
majority decision, carrying no moral power with it in the North, 
and if a speedy change were possible in one or two of the individ- 
uals composing the Court, such a decision would be unceremoni- 
ously reversed at its very next session. 

It is useless to disguise this state of things, or to pretend that 
there is any present probability of restoring the harmony that 
existed in the workings of the Government when there was a 
common agreement, North and South, that slavery was a nuis- 
ance, and an evil to be got rid of at the earliest practicable mo- 
ment. Such was our condition when the Union was formed 
and the Constitution adopted. At a later period a comparative 
harmony was preserved by compromises on the question. Now 
the old idea is repudiated by the slavery men, and the compro- 
mise system seemingly abjured by all. We are thus arrived at 
the point of collision between the opposing forces in the Govern- 
ment. While this state of things continues to exist there can be 
no peace. J. S. P. 

New York, December 23, 1856. 

Dear Pike : There's rather too much truth in this to print, and I 
send it to you for your private edification. You old fogies die hard, 
but you can't live forever. In my judgment, we are a great deal better 
off as we are than we should have been with McLean elected ; but as for 
his coming within a gunshot of Fremont's vote, it is all gammon. He 
couldn't have carried the Northwest, and wouldn't have got over one 
hundred and seventy thousand in this State. 

Merry Christmas and happy New Year ! C. A. D. 



Jan. 1857] POSITION OF THE SUPREME COURT 355 



1857. 



THE LEGAL CRISIS. 
[From the New York Tribune.] 

Washington, January 5, 1857. 

The rumor that the Supreme Court has decided against the 
constitutionality of the power of Congress to restrict slavery in 
the Territories has been commented upon in the most unreserved 
manner at this metropolis. It is very generally considered that 
the moral weight of such a decision would be about equal to that 
of a political stump speech of a slave-holder or a doughface. 

Many have expressed the opinion that the question would not 
be met by the Court, and numbers are still of that way of think- 
ing. It makes but little difference to slavery whether it gets a 
decision in its favor now or after the public mind shall have had 
time to cool a little. But it would be best for anti-slavery that 
the decision should come now, while the popular heart is in a 
fused condition. The impression it would thus make would be 
deeper and more distinct, and the whole series of pro-slavery 
aggressions and triumphs would then be burned into it together. 
The Congress, the Court and the Executive would then take 
their proper position of joint association, in the mind of the 
people, as confederates in the work of extending the intolerable 
nuisance of slavery. It is, therefore, to be preferred that the 
judicial department shall now put itself actively upon the side of 
the slave-holders while the mind of the country is warm and burn- 
ing, rather than wait and do it by and by when apathy shall have 
again overspread it. When a political scheme is to be furthered 
by judicial action, it is a thousand times better that that action 
should be taken boldly, when every man, woman, and child have 



356 A POLITICAL DECISION THREATENED. [Jan. 

their eyes upon the Court, than to have that body steal silently 
and stealthily in the same direction. Judicial tyranny is hard 
enough to resist under any circumstances, for it comes in the 
guise of impartiality and with the prestige of fairness. If the 
Court is to take a political bias, and to give a political decision, 
then let us by all means have it distinctly and now. The public 
mind is in a condition to receive it with the contempt it merits. 

It is a matter of surprise that everybody does not see, or at 
least will not acknowledge, that many of the steps taken by 
slavery to strengthen itself are more weakening to it than any 
other course of policy that could be devised. Instead of trying 
to propitiate the Northern conservative sentiment which really 
pervades Northern society everywhere and in all ranks — in its re- 
ligion, its literature, its industry — slavery defies, insults, and ex- 
asperates it. Instead of the people of the South demanding the 
toleration, sympathy, and commiseration for the existence of a 
gigantic curse among them, which are really their due while 
they behave with decency before the world, they insanely swear 
their curse is a blessing, hug their rottenness, and claim to shove 
it upon others, all the while exhibiting a demeanor that expresses 
uncharitableness, and contumely, and hate. They are thus alien- 
ating the North from the South, and abolitionizing the whole of 
the former in the most rapid manner. They are in so doing pro- 
voking their torments before their time. J. S. P. 



THE GHOST THAT WON T DOWN. 

[From the New York Tribune] 

Washington, January 20, 1857. 
The ghost of anti-slavery haunts the footsteps of the expiring 
Administration. The Union of this morning labors to show that 
the whole question between the North and the South is in respect 
to the morality of slavery. And it sagely concludes that the 
North has the right to its convictions that it is an immoral institu- 
tion, and the South to its pet belief that it is an institution entirely 
compatible with morality and Christianity. Thus it pleads for 
non-intervention as applied to discussion, or, in other words, no 
opposition to it, not even in the harmless form of words. 



1857] THE " UNION" NEWSPAPER. 357 

But the Union is blind. It will not see. Slavery is opposed 
not only on moral grounds, but as a nuisance in our political sys- 
tem. It stands directly in the way of the harmonious working of 
the Democratic principle. Mr. Calhoun always used to declare 
this fact to be the saving grace of the Government. But Mr. 
Calhoun did not believe in democracy, and democracy does not 
believe in Mr. Calhoun. Slavery is the great exceptional fact in 
our institutions. It is the great antagonist principle that mars 
their workings. Now, unless the principle of human slavery 
is stronger than the principle of democracy, it must go to the 
wall in the end. What anti-slavery has worked for hitherto in 
its great politcal movements has been to limit the extension of 
the institution. The founders of the Government put it under 
the ban, and the attempt has ever been to so hold it, and, through 
this disparagement and the influence of limitation, to finally wear 
away and extinguish its existence. 

Thus it has ever been esteemed a political excrescence to be 
absorbed by the growth of a great, flourishing, democratic body 
politic. The idea has never been entertained, when considered 
in connection with the ultimate development of the democratic 
principle to its final issues, that slavery was to develop itself 
pari passu along with it, and be its everlasting companion. Non- 
intervention with it in the States where it exists has been a rule 
of political action ; but underlying this rule has always existed 
the sentiment that slavery was a temporary incident in our na- 
tional existence ; and the rule never forbade the idea of discuss- 
ing the question of amelioration and providing for its ultimate 
removal. 

But in the progress of events it turns out that the leading po- 
litical thought of the country on this subject is to be forced into 
revolution. Ideas upon it are to be shoved over on to an entirely 
new track. We are substantially told that democratic republican 
government must be developed in company and along with its 
great antagonism — slavery ; that the Republic and slavery are 
loving twins, to be nurtured and fostered and grown up together ; 
that when we have expanded our model Republic into a popula- 
tion of one hundred millions, we must likewise have fostered the 
growth of the sister interest into fifteen millions of slaves. 

Now, this plan will not work. The Union's homilies and 



358 ONLY A TRUCE POSSIBLE. [Feb. 

the theory of Nebraskaism alike drive in this direction, but the 
contest turns on the very point they put forth, as the one for 
general concurrence, and upon which all should agree, namely, 
that slavery should be allowed to expand without hindrance. 
And we must tell their authors that the hostility to its spread 
cannot be effectually countervailed by political defeat on that 
issue, whether fairly or unfairly put. The party of abridgment, 
when that plan shall fail, will turn to the party of expulsion. It 
will in the end grow even more decisively malcontent on the 
basis of a settlement looking to its unrestrained spread and the 
consequently increased permanence of the institution. There is 
no peace for this Union on the basis of the extension of slavery 
and the perpetuity of slavery. The first point has awakened the 
existing uproar on the subject, and the agitation of the second 
will only make things worse. 

The existing generation may patch up a truce on the subject, 
and probably will, if Kansas comes in as a free State ; but unless 
the South shifts its ground, or Kebraskaism is conquered in a 
national contest, who can doubt that the wedge is already en- 
tered that will sever the black torpid mass of Southern barbarism 
from the flourishing intelligence of Northern civilization ? Who 
can doubt that the dead branch will be severed from the living 
trunk ? J. S. P. 



[From Hon. George F. Talbot.] 

Machias. Me. , February 5, 1857. 
My Dear Sir : I have read with great interest all of your com- 
munications to the Tribune since your return to Washington, and par- 
ticularly those in which you express the conviction that the dissolution 
of the Union is a probable event. I think your opinion is by no means 
a heretical or unusual one, but is shared by nearly all of the intelligent 
thinkers in the country who are opposed to slavery. Few political 
writers have the manliness to express in writings for the press — which 
are for the most part toned to suit the most superficial popular preju- 
dices — philosophic and speculative views in the same frankness and 
truthfulness they would use in discussing questions of science, art, or 
literature. When we write upon science we address ourselves to the 
educated minds, and when we discuss literature we stand in awe of 
critics, but in politics we habitually address ourselves to the mob. 



1857] LETTER FROM GEORGE F. TALBOT. 359 

I think we fall into this vice from the necessity we are under of making 
stump speeches to achieve some special election, and of editing cam- 
paign papers to smuggle in some candidate on some platform. The 
position the Tribune holds is due to the opinion that people have of it 
as an independent journal that will discuss political subjects upon abso- 
lute principles, without reference to the necessities of candidates or the 
odium of particular opinions. If it is not such a journal, then there is a 
field for such a journal, and the readers of the Tribune would rush to 
its support in larger droves than they have gathered round the Tribune. 

I am very glad that you are disposed to magnify your office as a 
political writer, and doubt not you are securing for yourself a high 
position as an independent and profound thinker, whose ideas proceed 
from no exigencies of a party, but from the maturest convictions of truth. 

I only wished, however, to say that I do not believe you have been 
misunderstood or prejudiced by any of your readers. It was a sheer 
piece of cowardice to call you a disunionist. A man may be an intense 
lover of the Union, and yet be unable to close his eyes to the plain 
prognostications of its dissolution, in spite of all his own patriotism. A 
father might as well be charged with seeking the death of his child who 
communicates to others his knowledge that she is hopelessly sinking 
under a disease which no skill or care can prevent or cure. 

Your views upon this whole matter quite accord with my own. Two 
or three years ago the Tribune printed an article of mine tracing the 
history of the policy of the Government relation to slavery in three epochs 
— from 1790 to 1820, slavery discouraged, freedom fostered ; from 1820 

to 1850, slavery and freedom equalized; from 1850 to , slavery 

fostered, freedom discouraged. The concluding paragraph was some- 
thing like this : When the nation deliberately adopted the policy of 
giving the slave power the control of this Republic, the dissolution of 
the Union became inevitable. The Tribune men put the consequence 
thus : An intense sectional contest between North and South became in- 
evitable ! 

What a miserable bugbear is this. Can we never say dissolution of 
the Union without drawing down upon us an inquisitorial visit from the 
police ? 

I hope you will continue your able and timely discussion. One such 
manly warning as yours of the results of the present madness will do 
infinitely more to avoid the catastrophe than a regiment of Mrs. Parting- 
tons with their brooms to sweep out the Atlantic Ocean of popular revo- 
lution that will directly surge in the very direction you indicate. 

With much esteem, yours, Gr. F. Talbot. 



360 LETTER FROM T. W. HIGGINSON. [Feb. 

[From T. W. Higginson.] 

Worcester, Mass., February 9, 1857. 

Dear Sir : I do not know whether you have any interest in the 
Massachusetts disunion movement ; but it inspires deep interest among 
many who are neither non-resistants nor Garrisonians ; and from the 
suggestions thrown out in your powerful letters in the Tribune, I should 
judge that you were not so blind as most people to the real tendencies 
of the time. To me it is plain that the chasm which the founders of 
the Republic could not close when it was a crack can still less be closed 
when spread to its present dimensions. I understand Wilson's policy, 
but think he underrates the ignorant conceited obstinacy of the South, 
which will not make or sustain doughfaces, as we do, and will risk the 
last issue sooner than yield a point. All the laws of nature work for 
disunion ; there is a mine beneath us, and the South will cram in 
powder quite as fast as we can touch it off. 

My present object is to ask if you can render any assistance, pri- 
vately or openly, in circulating about a hundred copies of the printed 
report of the Convention among the proper persons in Washington — 
gratis, of course, so far as they are concerned ; and it would be worth 
our while to pay for having it well done. If you prefer not to appear 
in the matter, can you not get it done, or put it in the way of being 
done ? Any aid or suggestions will greatly oblige 

Yours cordially, T. W. Higginson.* 






THE DALLAS TREATY. 
[Prom the Kew York TrHnine.] 

Washington, February 21, 1857. 
The long secret sessions of the Senate on the Dallas treaty 
are by no means devoted to dry discussion. They are of the 
most interesting character. The substance of the case before the 
Senate is this : Mr. Dallas was instructed to approach the British 
Government, and ask it to make a treaty explanatory of the 
Clayton and Bulwer Convention. Lord Palmerston replied that 
they thought that convention was plain enough now, but he did 
not want to be difficult, and if the United States were dissatisfied 
and had any propositions to make, he would hear them. If Uncle 

* This and the preceding letter refer to a personal discussion in the THbune, 
for which there is no room or appropriateness in the text. 



?857] LORD PALMERSTON AND MR. DALLAS. 361 

Sam would only tell him what lie wanted, he would try and grat- 
ify him. Mr. Marcy instructed Mr. Dallas to name the Mos- 
quito question and the Bay Islands. ' ' Well, ' ' replies Lord 
Palmerston, "what of the former? We are as desirous to get 
out of that scrape as you are to have us out. But how to do it is 
the question. The poor devils have a claim on us that we can- 
not shake off honorably. But we have agreed not to colonize or 
fortify or exercise dominion there, and what can this miserable 
little protectorate be to you anyway ?" " Oh," says Mr. Dallas, 
"we are afraid some Englismen may go and settle there." 
"Well," admits Lord Palmerston, "this would be shocking. 
But Yankees may do the same — and may do it as quick as they 
like. We will just put ourselves even with you there." " But," 
responds Mr. Marcy through Mr. Dallas, "the boundaries of that 
Mosquito coast are indefinite. " "I am sorry for that, ' ' says the 
British negotiator. "But this is a matter that touches Hon- 
duras, and we must consult her about that. But anything to 
stop your growling : we will fix it as you say. Now what else ?" 
"Well," says our bushy-headed embassador, "there are the 
Bay Islands." " Yery well ; we do not care anything about the 
Bay Islands. We will give them to the d — 1, or to Honduras, 
just as you say. Which shall it be?" " To Honduras, " says 
the meek Mr. Dallas. "To Honduras it is," says Lord Palm- 
erston. " Is there anything else that lies heavy on your mind 
about this eternal Central American business?" To which in- 
quiry President Pierce, through Mr. Marcy, and Mr. Marcy 
through Mr. Dallas, replies : " Nothing at all, my Lord, that I 
think of. " Then asks Palmerston, " You are satisfied, are you ?" 
"Well, may it please your lordship, we believe that this fixes 
the whole thing up, and that we have nothing more to ask, ' ' 
answers our embassador. "Then I am rejoiced," responded 
Lord Palmerston. " Now send the treaty over and have it rati- 
fied, and let us have a final end to this whole business." 

Such is the substance of a long correspondence before the 
Senate between this and the British Government in regard to 
this treaty. The correspondence fully shows that it was dictated 
to Mr. Dallas piece by piece from the State Department, and 
was reluctantly acceded to by the British Government, but 
without objection, because that power was willing to promote 



362 MR. CASS FOB PEACE. [Feb. 

the offices of good neighborhood and satisfy every wish of the 
United States in the premises. 

It is the awkwardness of the case that gives rise to the pro- 
longed debate, and this arises from the pertinent fact here set 
forth, that the treaty is a bantling of our Administration, a dic- 
tation of our own Executive Government ; and that, after Eng- 
land has reluctantly acceded to its terms, we stand in the shilly- 
shallying position of objecting to ratify it. One of the points 
of filibustering against it we have already referred to — that of 
applying the Wilmot Proviso to the Bay Islands. 

The discussion has been fruiful of political situations. Part 
of the South has been indignant and warlike, and desirous of 
being held by the coat-tail. This favor having been denied by 
Northern Senators, and the benefits of a foreign war on our 
manufacturing interests and its probable local disasters in 
Southern latitudes having been quietly suggested, the truculent 
heroes of the plantation have taken to roaring as gently as suck- 
ing doves. 

Mr. Cass has again made a distinguished exhibition of his 
rotatory powers. He now declares that it was a great mistake to 
suppose he is a war man. He is no such thing. He is for 
peace. He protests that this difficulty with England can be set- 
tled and must be settled. War is not inevitable. It need not 
take place. It must not take place. It shall not take place. 
He at once conjugates : I am for peace, you are for peace, we 
are for peace, the slaveholders are for peace. "Who wants war ? 
George Sanders and the filibusters ; Robert J. Walker and the 
incertitudes generally. But R. J. is not in. I myself am Sec- 
retary of State ; and however truculent I might have been while 
General Jackson lived, I am peaceable now. Gentlemen, we 
can't fight. The friends of the peculiar institution say No. 
And I know when they say No that you know and we all know 
that it means No. No, gentlemen, we shall have no war. The 
slave-holders object, the Administration will object, I object. 
We are all a bundle of George W. Joneses together, and " ob- 
ject." 

Give the devil and the new Administration and General Cass 
their due. They are conservative on the question of war with 
any first-class power. They will not have it, for the slave-holders 



1857] A SUBLIME CREDULITY. 363 

dare not. As to the promotion of the interests of slavery itself, 
they are cut and dried for all rank and radical measures. No 
war, but plenty of slavery. Gentlemen, proceed ! J. S. P. 



BUCHANAN — KANSAS. 
[From the New York Tribune.] 

Washington, February 23, 1857. 

It is instructive to witness the just beginning spasms of sub- 
lime credulity in the North over the lately bedimmed prospects 
of Kansas. There are those who will have it, and have had it 
ever since November, that Mr. Buchanan is to inaugurate a reign 
of peace and quietness and fairness, subduing the lion of slavery 
by stroking his back, and making him a lamb before the world. 
These too credulous persons are just beginning to show symptoms 
of uneasiness lest after all it should turn out not to be so. They 
have cast aside huge facts demonstrating that Mr. Buchanan can 
be nothing but an instrument in the hands of the oligarchs, and 
have founded their opinion upon the indications afforded by 
straws lying in the lull that succeeded the Presidential storm. 
These they took to denote the essential mollification of the sla- 
very usurpation and to betoken the essential tranquillity of the 
nation. Facts have not changed, the prospects for the future 
have not changed ; the only change has been in the vision of 
these bland commentators, whose obtuseness has not recognized 
those facts or those prospects. 

The coming Administration has nothing to do, and contem- 
plates doing nothing but to carry out the policy of the slave- 
holders, whatever that be. We have more than once said that 
the force of the Republican movement in the North had its in- 
fluence upon them. It admonished them to be wary. There 
are those among them, of whom Governor Aiken is a type, who 
yield to the admonition, and would prefer to quiet the question 
by letting Kansas go. If this small minority could make its 
counsels heeded, Kansas might be allowed to come in as a free 
State. But while we admit this we have reasons to believe that 
the suggestions of moderation will not be heeded. The slave- 
holder has tasted the blood of conquest. His pride and his pas- 



364 SLAVE-HOLDERS RELENTLESS. [Feb. 

sions are roused, and the reduction of Kansas he means to con- 
summate. The elements are too combustible, the parties too 
fiery to be controlled by the counsels of moderation. They will 
kindle into flame again at the touch of a spark. The pile is 
again raised by the late action of the usurpers in the legislation 
to create a slave State out of Kansas. Ere long the blaze will 
mount as high and the heats become as intense as ever over this 
bitter topic. 

The slave-holder is determined and relentless. His purposes 
are clear and his will indomitable. He is after Kansas. He 
means to have Kansas. He has meant nothing else since Atchi- 
son took the first step to obtain it. There has never been weak- 
ness or doubt or hesitation either in the plans or the action taken 
to reduce that Territory to slavery. As the slave-holder has be- 
gun, so he will end. Mr. Buchanan is not a straw in his path. 
Mr. Buchanan is simply one of his weapons of war in accom- 
plishing his purpose. The Administration will be coerced into 
rendering him vital aid. It cannot help itself unless it goes 
over to the Black Republicans. Its right arm is in the South. 
There are its backers and supporters. The imbecility of the 
Northern wing of the Democratic organization, their demorali- 
zation as the mere janizaries of slavery, make them totally unfit 
to be relied on, totally helpless as a party of opposition to the 
dominant power of the South. Mr. Buchanan will not even 
make a feint of standing up against the oligarchy. Kansas has 
not had and will not have the shadow of a chance of redemption 
from her present thraldom, except at the instance of the South 
itself. We have thought there was a chance for this interpo- 
sition. There is the barest possibility of it still. But our judg- 
ment is daily strengthened that no such interposition in behalf of 
fair play for Kansas will be made, and that the slave-holders will 
go on with the same arrogant imperiousness with which they be- 
gan to complete the conquest of that Territory, and to more com- 
pletely reduce and humiliate the political power, and principles, 
and self-respect of the Free States. The Free and Slave States 
are in a war for power, and the fact should never be forgotten. 
The contest is hand to hand. The hostility finds its foundations 
in immutable principles. The feud is deadly. The collision is 
fierce. However much we may hope for it, however believe in 



1857] BUCHANAN'S INAUGURAL. 365 

the possibility of an accommodation of the strife, reflection 
teaches it is too much to expect that an advantage gained by 
either party in such a strife will be surrendered to the other. 
The slavery men have by the foulest infamy obtained the legal 
mastery in Kansas, and we may expect they will keep it. 

Let the dull-seeing moderates of the North learn to view this 
question as it really is, and cease to utter their jeremiads over 
dangers that beset their hopes. The tones of deprecation and 
fear are not befitting the Free States at the present crisis in their 
fate. For they are the tones of cowards, and will be, as they 
deserve to be, trampled under foot. The attitude of the Free 
States should be that of defiance and resistance. They should 
assemble in council and repudiate the bastard rale of a slave- 
holding oligarchy, backed by a mercenary minority of place- 
holders — a rule converting the Free States into mere instruments 
for the unlimited extension of slavery within the present and 
prospective limits of the Federal Union. J. S. P. 



THE TRIUMPH OF SLAVERY. 

[Prom the New York Tribune^ 

"Washington, March 5, 1857. 
The Union of to-day contains two poorly-written articles, 
whose gentle platitudes and by-your-leave air do clearly intimate 
the character of the new President and his new organ. But if 
Mr. Buchanan is not clear and forcible in style, we must admit 
that the doctrines of the Inaugural are sufficiently pointed and 
distinct. Of these we come at once to the expression of a firm 
conviction, blunt as it may seem, that this Union is not worth 
saving nor this Government worth preserving, upon the basis of 
the doctrine of the Inaugural, backed by the coming decision 
of the Supreme Court, to which the President, by intimation, 
clearly points. This doctrine is that slavery must be allowed a 
co-terminous existence with all our existing territory not under 
State government, and its extension must be allowed to keep 
pace hereafter with the extension of our future territorial limits. 
In other words, and in brief, no restriction must be placed upon 
slavery outside of the Free States, and Congress must be pro- 



366 THE CORONATION. [March 

hibited by judicial decision from imposing any such restriction 
— thus establishing the motto of the Federal Government to be, 
' ' No Freedom outside of the Free States. ' ' 

Perhaps we ought to be grateful to Mr. Buchanan for placing 
himself, so distinctly as he has placed himself, upon this clear 
ground. The world can see it and can understand it. Such of 
the American people as choose to see can see just what position 
the Federal Government, under Mr. Buchanan's Administration, 
takes on this * question, and they will soon see that the Federal 
Judiciary supports it by a decision which declares unconstitu- 
tional any adverse position. 

"We need not, however, thank Mr. Buchanan, for he has been 
driven upon his position by the force of events, and the deep- 
laid, slowly-matured, and always consistent and far-reaching 
policy of the oligarchs ; for whom the Free State men of the 
Union, w T ith here and there a rare exception, have never shown 
themselves to be any match. This policy of planting the Fed- 
eral Government on the side of an open, undisguised, entire 
devotion to the interests of slavery, and demanding conformity 
thereto of all participants in its administration, has been grad- 
ually forcing its way through fogs and murky darkness, its ex- 
istence doubted and denied wherever partisan interest required 
the denial, until at last this policy bursts upon the country and 
upon the w r orld in the Inaugural of Mr. Buchanan and in the 
coming decision of the Supreme Court upon the right of Con- 
gress to restrict slavery in the Territories, with a distinctness and 
clearness as impressive and alarming as it is vivid. It is the 
closing in of an Arctic night in our history. It is the swing-to 
of the iron door of a political Bastille upon the principles and 
the aims of the founders of this Government. But that night 
will end; that door will be opened. 

"We said, when the Kansas-Nebraska bill passed, " The revo- 
lution is accomplished, and Slavery is king." "We point to Mr. 
Buchanan's Inaugural and the coming decision of the Supreme 
Court as the coronation of that power. The lesson of to-day is, 
that triumph must be triumphed over, that crown must be torn 
from that brow. But it will take something besides sentimental 
Abolitionism, something beyond the scope of party discussions, 
looking primarily to the preservation of the Union, to do it. 



1857] NOTHING LEFT BUT RESISTANCE. 367 

"What that something is cannot be spoken into form. Its essence 
is the spirit of determined resistance to political usurpation. 

Let it be everywhere understood that the oligarchs have at 
length fully emerged from all obscurity as to their polity and 
designs, and now stand forth before the world in the person of 
Mr. Buchanan and in the decision of the Supreme Court, pro- 
claiming that hereafter the fundamental rule of the Federal Gov- 
ernment shall be, "No Freedom outside the Free States.." 

There is thus nothing left for the people of the Free States 
but to confront and break down this insulting domination over 
their rights and their interests, or ingloriously succumb to their 
conquerors. The only question left for the consideration of 
those who do not intend to recognize the legitimacy of this revo- 
lution in the administration of the Federal Constitution is, What 
is the true mode of resisting it ? In what way shall the Free 
States extricate themselves from this conquest over them ? How 
shall they throw off the foisted infamy of a Union and Govern- 
ment forcibly converted to the uses of human slavery, and 
wielded with a determined purpose of politically debauching the 
Northern masses, crushing the principles and the instincts of 
freedom, and quelling all opposition to its sway ? 

A greater and more serious question was never propounded 
in the whole course of our history than this. Upon its solution 
hang results of momentous importance. For no political calm 
and no personal indifference can lessen the magnitude of the fact 
that the people of the Free States have now to decide whether 
they will consent that the Federal Government shall be made a 
gigantic engine for the spread and perpetuation of African sla- 
very all over the North American Continent, or whether they 
will unite together to frustrate this ruinous and guilty purpose, 
regardless of consequences. J . S. P. 



DECISION OF THE SUPREME COURT. 
[From the New York Tribune.] 

Washington, March 8, 1857. 
The slavery question has at length found its way into the Su- 
preme Court in all its length and breadth, and that body has 



368 THE DRED SCOTT DECISION. [March 

fully justified all predictions and all anticipations that the system 
would find therein a home and a bulwark. The members of 
that body have done for it all and more than all that it was ever 
alleged they would do by those who, like Mr. John P. Hale, 
have always considered and characterized that Court as the 
"Citadel of Slavery." 

Alas ! that the character of the Supreme Court of the United 
States as an impartial judicial body has gone ! It has abdicated 
its just functions and descended into the political arena. It has 
sullied its ermine ; it has draggled and polluted its garments in 
the filth of pro-slavery politics. From this day forth it must 
stand in the inexorable judgment of impartial history as a self- 
disgraced tribunal. And from this day forth it will be one of 
the great and leading aims of the people of the Free States to 
obliterate the shameful record and undo what it has done. What 
has been done will be undone. For that Court, instead of plant- 
ing itself upon the immutable principles of justice and righteous- 
ness, has chosen to go upon a temporary and decaying founda- 
tion. If there is such a thing as Eternal Justice in the universe, 
that foundation must crumble and fall and carry all who repose 
upon it into an inevitable ruin. 

The Court decides that the Constitution of the United States 
recognizes property in man, and that under it, and by force of it, 
human slavery is nationalized, and must be protected and defended 
in its spread and perpetuation, whithersoever that Constitution is 
carried and is legitimately in force. 

It is plain that the decision must be temporary, from the fact 
that slavery cannot exist forever in this Republic. It must per- 
ish in some way. The aim of those who believe in its disas- 
trous influences and pernicious results has hitherto been to re- 
strict its spread, in the benevolent desire of limiting those malign 
influences and results, and in the hope that it could be thus re- 
strained within manageable limits and be brought to a peaceful 
end. The decision now made has been made in the hope of 
baffling these objects. It has been made with a view to head off 
the party of restriction and to give to slavery full swing. 

If the action of the Court in this case has been atrocious, 
the manner of it has been no better. The Court has rushed into 
politics voluntarily, and without other purpose than to subserve 



1857] JUDGES CURTIS AND M'LEAN. 369 

the cause of slavery. They were not called, in the discharge of 
their duties, to say a word about the subject. Judge Curtis 
created a very marked sensation among his colleagues by charg- 
ing this as an offence, and a violation of their own rules of ju- 
dicial action. But they were in hot haste to enter the service 
of slavery. They would not wait to be called. They volun- 
teered their service. They at once violated their rules, sacri- 
ficed principle, and disgraced the judicial character. They hur- 
ried upon infamy. The appearance of the Court during the 
delivery of the opinions and at the final close of the case was that 
of nervous exultation over their attempts to garrote the Free 
States and the people of freedom. The only consolation an ob- 
server could draw was in the reflection that the garroters would 
themselves be sent to Coventry in the end. They seemed to feel 
that they had headed off the great Republican party which came 
so near triumphing, and had confirmed and consolidated the 
slave-holders' political power. They forgot that their decision 
would be regarded, throughout the Free States, and wherever 
the pulse of liberty beats, only as the votes of five slave-holders 
and two doughfaces upon a question where their opinion was not 
asked, and where their votes would not count. For this is the 
true state of the case, considering their decision to be, as Mr. 
Justice Curtis substantially pronounced it, extra-judicial and 
foreign to the case under review. They had achieved a tri- 
umph ; but what was that triumph ? The Supreme Court had 
been called to vote on a political question, and but two con- 
sistent and judicial minds were found therein. The vote accord- 
ingly stood seven to two, the five slave-holders and two dough- 
faces making up the seven. Their cunning chief had led the 
van, and plank by plank laid down a platform of historical false- 
hood and gross assumption, and thereon they all stood exult- 
ingly, thinking, or feigning to think, that their work would 
stand during the remainder of their lives at least. The proceed- 
ing had a merit. We acknowledge that it was a number-one 
specimen of judicial caucussing over a political subject on the 
side of the winning party. It had this merit ; no other. 

The opinions of Judge McLean and Judge Curtis were ex- 
ceedingly full and thorough, and crammed with sound doctrine. 
To speak of their ability would be superfluous. Judge McLean 



370 JUDGE CURTIS'S EXPOSITION. [March 

stands forth in full lustre, uttering opinions on the side of Jus- 
tice and Freedom, to which the North will respond as one man 
in grateful admiration. Judge Curtis followed him with a mas- 
terly exposition of the whole subject. On the question of the 
citizenship of the people of African descent, which Judge Taney 
laboriously denied, Judge Curtis's argument was entirely ex- 
haustive. He has settled the question. He ground up the 
Chief Justice's argument, and has placed his case upon immuta- 
ble foundations. He has made the law on this subject, and the 
question will never be argued again. He may be voted down by 
legislatures, courts, and executives, but the argument will for- 
ever stand unimpeached. The Chief Justice and his next-door 
neighbor Wayne evidently felt the weight of his exposition. 
And while Judge Curtis did not tell his legal chief that he was 
guilty of falsehood, he did say that his statements would be re- 
ceived with very great surprise, and proceeded to demonstrate 
his gross historical misrepresentations. The Chief Justice's dis- 
comfiture on this point will have a very serious and damaging 
effect upon the other parts of his opinion, which would be weak 
enough standing alone, and which, under existing circumstances, 
deserve no more respect than any pro-slavery stump speech made 
during the late Presidential canvass. J. S. P. 



[From the Neiv York Tribune.'] 

"Washington, Monday, March 23, 1857. 

"What are you going to do about it ?" This is the question 
tauntingly asked of the opponents of the rule of the slave power, 
in view of the recently-erected barrier attempted to be thrown 
around its usurpations by the Supreme Court. " What are you 
going to do about it ?" Let us answer the inquiry. And since 
we are about it, let us come directly to the point, and neither 
mince nor disguise matters, nor attempt to conceal from our- 
selves or the public the actual state of affairs. 

The country is in a great civil conflict. The party of slavery 
is in power, and intends to hold its grip by the exercise of usurped 
authority. The party of freedom is in opposition, and borders 
upon a state of insurrection against that usurpation. That usur- 
pation consists in a double-headed violation of the Constitution — 



1857] WHAT IS TO BE DONE? 371 

one aspect of it being an arrogation of power to the Federal Gov- 
ernment in the assertion of the right to extend slavery into the 
free territory, and declaring that the Constitution itself does so 
extend it — a power never hitherto asserted nor exercised ; and 
the other a derogation of the power of the same authority, by 
denial of its right to modify, control, or prevent such extension — 
a power recognized and exercised, according to Judge Curtis, in 
an unbroken chain of administration of the Federal Constitution 
ever since its adoption. 

This is a strictly accurate and the simplest possible statement 
of the existing condition of public affairs. The " what-are-you- 
going-to-do-about-it " people are those who believe or profess to 
believe in the ability of the usurpers, by force of the central 
power, with its array of suborned judges and hemp-suggesting 
allies, to deter the party of freedom from attempting to repel and 
prostrate the usurpation by unusual measures. It is too much to 
expect of this class of men to perceive the deeper springs and 
grander movements of history. They simply look upon the 
people as so fettered by constitutional forms and legal impedi- 
ments that they cannot extricate themselves from their own 
humiliation but by acts which they are not willing to perform. 
The power of the people cannot be disputed ; it is simply their 
manhood which is questioned. Fearers and worshippers of power 
themselves, like the same class of time-servers under all govern- 
ments, these poor-spirited parasites look upon the chains of 
tyrants only to laugh at their victims. And while they exult 
over the apparent strength of these chains, they tauntingly ask 
of those over whom they are thrown, ' ' What are you going to 
do about it?" 

For one, we make answer to the insulting inquiry by prompt 
and unequivocal reply. We propose to revolutionize the revolu- 
tion. We design to prosecute countervailing measures to the 
usurpation which shall be sufficiently radical and effective to ac- 
complish its overthrow. We intend to strike directly at the 
usurping power. That power is slavery. We propose to drive 
directly at its vitals, wherever it exists. Forced into a war, driven 
into straits where one party or the other must sink, we go for 
sinking slavery. In a contest of vital consequence and far-reach- 
ing results we cannot stand upon ceremony. Having no alter- 



372 TIIE COURSE POINTED OUT. [March 

native but to yield to slavery or to conquer slavery, we strike for 
its unconditional extinction in this Government, whether by ex- 
pulsion or otherwise. Upon this ground we believe the battle 
should be fought by all who do not intend to be victimized and 
degraded by the insulting rule of the slave power. 

This war upon slavery must be made by the Free States act- 
ing in their own sovereign capacity or by such co-operative union 
among them as shall be deemed best by the parties. It cannot 
be effectively carried on to its successful completion by the sole 
action of Federal agencies. It is too late for that. This plan has 
been tried and found wanting. The reasons why might be 
given at length, but we must omit them here. The Lower 
House of Congress may, where possible, be used as an auxiliary 
force, but this is all. The Free States, acting in their own sep- 
arate and independent capacity, must accomplish the work. 
What those States must first do is to rise from their dependent, 
secondary, half-torpid position, and assume the attitude of inde- 
pendent, self-respecting, self-reliant States. They need organi- 
zation. They must be aroused to feel and to declare their rights. 
It is time to shake off the dust and sloth of generations, and to 
assert their powers, so long left in abeyance. They have need to 
recur to first principles, to brush away the cobwebs which have 
accumulated upon their books of constitutional law, restore to 
light their almost forgotten reserved rights, erect their prostrate 
political status upon a pedestal where it can be seen of all men. 
They must train their people and organize their military re- 
sources, not for war but for defence. They must assert their 
sovereignty, and be ready to defy all possible assaults upon it. 
Thus they may at one and the same time secure peace and com- 
mand respect. 

This done, and it may be quickly done, let them hurl their 
bolts into the ranks of slavery. Let them begin their approaches 
and prosecute their assaults in whatever manner and direction 
can be shown to be most effectual. This work may in fact be 
carried along pari passu with the work of preparing the Free 
States for whatever emergency their position may induce. They 
may be skirmishing against the enemy while being disciplined. 
At present the anti-slavery spirit lies embosomed in a mere mob 
of numbers. The Yankees, are to too great an extent, degen- 



1857] POWER OF THE STATES. 373 

erated to schoolmastering and huckstering. They are cultivated 
effeminates, like the last of the Greeks. All this must be re- 
formed. For the slave-driving oligarchs wind the men of cul- 
ture round their finger. Determination, discipline, organization 
must take the place of all such sentimental vigor and growling 
imbecility as was witnessed in that disgraceful spectacle, the An- 
thony Burns mob. In a word, the North must learn to act as 
well as talk. Do we need to intimate in what direction ? We 
think not, except to wilful obtuseness. Wisconsin has taken one 
step in the true path. Yet, nobly as she has acted, and grate- 
fully as her early assertion of State independence shall be re- 
membered hereafter, her star will yet be pointed to only as one 
of a glorious galaxy, with which the future shall overspread the 
heavens, that was the first to shine out from the unbroken dark- 
ness of a murky sky. 

But there are larger and more comprehensive functions to be 
discharged than any State has yet initiated. For no State has 
yet come to a full view or a full contemplation of the force and 
criminality of the usurpation which has vaulted into the saddle 
of the Federal Government. Usurpation must be met by revolt, 
and revolt does not deal alone or stop with barricades. It makes 
necessity alone the rule of its action. The law of its conduct is 
not laid down in the books. It is extemporized on the gate- 
posts of the usurper by those who crowd in to his overthrow. 
The States must move directly upon the object they combat. 
Slavery has enthroned itself upon the violated Constitution. It 
must be dethroned by the parties to that instrument. Their 
starting-point for this work, the fulcrum to the lever by which 
they will overturn its power, is the Declaration of Independence. 
The Free States must throw themselves directly back upon this 
instrument. They must fearlessly propagate its doctrines and 
scatter its fires wherever the Constitution extends. The effort 
will pierce the vitals of the barbarism that seeks to instal itself 
upon the wreck of a violated Constitution. This is the magic 
power that shall dispel the curse that now threatens to blast the 
hopes of mankind. This is the spear that shall transfix and de- 
stroy its existence. 

" For no falsehood can endure 

Touch of celestial temper. ' ' 



374 LETTER FROM JOSHUA R. OIDDINGS. [Marcii 

The people of the Free States have Only to go to their work in 
earnest to accomplish this result. 

It has always been the doctrine of the State Rights or old 
Democratic party that the States had the right to judge of in- 
fractions of the Constitution, and, in a case of importance, to de- 
cide upon the mode and measure of redress. And since the 
Slave States, regardless of every consideration of constitutional 
obligation, of comity, and of State equality, have undertaken to 
control and degrade the Free States by making them parties to a 
scandalous oppression, they — the Free States — may rightfully 
retaliate by aiming at the condign punishment of their adversaries, 
the transgressors, by the overthrow and destruction of slavery it- 
self. They are rightfully entitled to exercise this power under 
the Constitution, as expounded by its great authors. Let the 
Free States, then, rouse to their proper work, which the aggres- 
sions of slavery have necessitated, and go resolutely forward to 
the extinguishment of this pestilent institution — an institution 
that offends the world with its disgusting characteristics, and 
whose upholders dare to trample the rights and the principles of 
freedom under their feet, and in doing so to obtain tyrannic sway 
over millions of freemen and the uncontrolled dominion of a 
continent. After this manner let the people of the Free States 
answer the inquiry of the usurpers : " What are you going to 
do about it ?" J. S. P.^ 

[From Hon. Joshua R. Giddings.] 

Jefferson, Ohio, March 31, 1857. 

My Dear Sir : I seize a moment before leaving home to say 
that I thank you most heartily and sincerely for your letter to the 
Tribune of the 23d, and published in that paper of the 27th. Your 
plan is what every reflecting man of the Free States must see and 
approve when he once examines the subject. I thank God that we 
have men who ' are willing to speak out, and this decision of the 
Supreme Court is exciting attention. It has driven our fogies and 
doughfaces to the wall. They can go no farther. 

My health is pretty good, and I yet hope to do some little in aid of 
the great cause. 

Remember me very kindly to Mrs. Pike, and believe me, 

Yours for freedom, J. R. Giddings. 

J. S. Pike, Esq. 



1857] GREELEY AND GUROWSKTS LETTERS. 375 

[From Horace Greeley.] 

New York, July 1, 1857. 

Dear Pike : I have your resolves, which will go into to-morrow's 
Daily. Their appearance in the Weekly depends on Dana and Fortune. 

I think you were very judicious on the silver question. But our 
judges won't let us refer to the people. They say that makes a law 
unconstitutional. 

I will write you again about Tribune stock after I can see how I 
stand, pecuniarily. Yours, Horace Greeley. 

J. S. Pike, Esq. 



[From Count Gnroweki.] 

Saratoga Springs, July 16, 1857. 

My Dear Pike : I am a big scamp for answering so late your kind 
letter. How it came I could not explain, but I call myself the worsest 
names, so you not need to do so. 

On my return from the Western trip, I had no regular lodgings, 
expecting to leave New-York every day ; and the days have been taken 
or rather cut up between sending to immortality various dead and livino- 
individuals through the " Encyclopaedia Americana" — the great under- 
taking of Dana — and between swearing, eating, and the like uninterest- 
ing occupations. I am here for the whole season, hitherto satisfied with 
the place, the water, the climate, and my little self. I have given up 
Newport and the seashores, as last year I was perfectly stupefied during 
my stay near the roaming Atlantic. This shall prevent me from availing 
myself of your hospitality. Even previous to having received your lines, 
I planned to go to Maine, but now it is all over, being engaged in 
serious and tedious work, which I cannot interrupt, intending to have it 
done previous to my return to New-York. Besides, I could only 
admire your yacht out of the window, as for putting my foot on it 
would be altogether out of question. In less than five minutes every- 
thing within me should turn up and down. 

As politics are all the same, and a little dull, there is nothing to 
speak about. Pity that they cannot hang Mayor Wood. Have you 
any influential paper in your State ? It comes into my mind that you 
may help me most secretly to a vengeance upon Appleton, my publisher. 
He is frightened with the anti-slaveryism of my book to that extent that 
first he did not send it to the South, for which some of my Southern 
acquaintances overwhelmed me with reproaches ; but even — as I have 
been positively told — he does not care for, or rather underhandedly pre- 



37G LETTER FROM DONN PIATT. [Sept. 

vents the spreading of my book. He fears the South, with whom he 
has a large business, and which, as he believes, will be injured by his 
sincerely contributing to the expansion of America and Europe. This 
object cannot be broached in the Tribune, on account of many and 
various reasons. If you could thrash him a little in your State, or in a 
letter to some Boston paper, I shall have at least vengeance, if no 
moneys. But keep it secret. 

My most hearty respects to Mrs. Pike and to your daughter if she is 
with you. By the by, you paraded at the exposition. Likeness good, 
painting middle, middle. Yours, Gurowski. 



[From Donn Piatt.] 

Old Bailey, September 13, 1857. 

Mr Dear Friend : I have never, to my shame be it spoken, re- 
duced to writing my heart-felt thanks for your exertions in our behalf. 
That I am late in so doing only goes to prove how strong they live 
within me. Last year's thanks are generally as flat as they are frail, 
and after all I cannot say but that I write this more to remind you that 
you are my friend now, than to offer you my poor thanks for by-gone 
services. The fact is, I have been almost in monthly expectation of 
running against you. I found myself possessed of twenty -four hours in 
New- York the other day, and made directly for the Tribune office, in 
hopes of meeting you in the shade of the establishment you have done 
so much to make famous. But you were what Pope calls the noblest 
work of God, an non est man. I then tried Father Greeley, but he was 
off to his farm ; and as a last resort I took from him, said Greeley, a 
letter of introduction to Mrs. Cunningham Burdell, and thereby secured 
an hour's most agreeable, because entertaining, conversation. If I 
cannot drink with my friend, I will study the depraved. 

Well, all acknowledgments aside, for I doubt not that they bore you 
dismally, I want to announce to you in an informal manner — to speak 
diplomatically — as Doctor G. Bailey will inform you officially, that you 
and yours have been unanimously made members of the Old Bailey Co. 
The forms and conditions, rules and regulations, will be transmitted to 
you in due course of mail. But I will say to you that we — that is, my 
wife, who joins in all this — have passed the summer in this most de- 
lightful place, and so pleased are we that we have purchased — Doctor 
Bailey and I — and now find that we have room for a few more. We 
want you and family to join us. The property, a handsome cottage, 
with two acres, touching the ocean. Now for four months in the year 



1857] LETTERS— DANA AND DR. BAILEY. 377 

we seek to be well and happy. We will put " No admittance on busi- 
ness" on om* gate, and, with bathing-dresses, Catawba wine, a double- 
barrelled gun for bores and a big dog for duns, we will let the world go 
hang. Now make us happy by saying Yes ; and believe with love 
from all to all, Your sincere friend, Donn Piatt. 

Mr. James S. Pike. 



[From Charles A. Dana.] 

New York, November 12, 1857. 

Dear Pike : Yours of the 9th just received. The English papers 
shall be sent as soon as we get a lot. 

The financial era grows no brighter very fast, and we who foretold 
it console ourselves with crowing over you who didn't believe it would 
ever come. I must confess, though, it is a consolation I would rather 
not have had use for. But you are right to swear it isn't here from the 
cause on which our prophecy was based. Stick to that opinion. 

It is now time to abandon sensual pleasures and cultivate the higher 
parts of the soul. 

I heard from Henry James the other day, and at the end of the 
letter was a special remembrance to you. He's homesick, and is now 
convinced that his own country is a good place to bring up a fam- 
ily. . . . Yours faithfully, Charles A. D. 



Washington, D. C, December 15, 1857. 

Dear Pike : We live in an interesting age, as orators are apt to 
inform us. Douglas eulogized in the Tribune, and one editor beating 
up for subscribers to another ! Certainly we are in the last days, or at 
least the penultimates. 

Let me thank you ; it was kind of you ; I should not feel more 
grateful should you send me a score of subscribers. The times are 
perfectly awful on newspapers, T should think. I am quite sure I shall 
lose a third of my list. The letters are doleful — full of affection, 
sympathy, admiration, and fragmentary lists. 

What are you going to do this winter ? Why stay in New York ? 
You can't understand matters till you come here. I do not see how 
you can stay away. Do alter your plans ; we do not feel quite at 
home without you and Lizzie. I do not owe her this compliment, for 
she has fallen into the absurd habit of ignoring me of late. . . . 

Let us hear from you often, and believe me, 

Truly yours, G. Bailey. 

J. S. Pike, Esq. 



378 LETTER FROM SENATOR WADE. [Jan. 



1858. 



[From Senator Wade.] 



Washington, January 10, 1858. 
My Dear Pike : I saw and read your article before I received your 
letter. I regret that you are not to be with us ; there are many scenes 
transpiring among us every day that no pen but your own can do justice 
to. I repeat that I had read with the greatest interest your article on 
the cribis, and I had noticed it to others, who agreed with me in believ- 
ing that you had discovered the true cause of all our monetary difficul- 
ties. I know that Buchanan, in attributing it solely to the banks, talked 
like a fool. Others were equally wide of the mark. These were all 
manifestly but the effects of some deeper cause, as human nature is 
always about the same. To me your article makes it as clear as mathe- 
matics ; and with this clue, how simple and childish seem the specula- 
tions of all our wise men — Chase, Banks, Buchanan — curing the evil by 
restraining the issue of small bills. There is no great wonder that two 
minds discover a great truth about the same time ; this frequently hap- 
pens, and I could assign the reason if my paper was long enough. But 
I rejoice that the truth in this matter is out, the cause of the evil known. 
I hope a remedy may be found, and this eternal quackery about banks 
put to rest forever. My opinion is that the end of the old Locofoco 
party is at hand. It gives " signs of woe that all is lost." They are 
hopelessly broken, and must die. The party is in the same fix that the 
old Whig party was in on the repeal of the Compromise — divided in 
the middle, North, and South. I hope to be able during the session to 
preach its funeral sermon. 

Truly yours, B. F. Wade. 



1858] KNOCK-DOWN IN THE HOUSE. 379 

[From William Pitt Feesenden.] 

Washington, February 2, 1858. 
My Dear Pike : Yours received. I think the Army bill will be 
defeated, though we may authorize volunteers. Some of our people are 
frightened by the idea of refusing supplies in time of war ! ! Seward, 
I understand, is to make a speech for the bill. He is perfectly be- 
devilled. He will vote alone, so far as the Republicans are concerned, 
but he thinks himself wiser than all of us. 

Yours always, Fessenden. 



GROW ON KEITT. 
[From the Neiu York Tribune of February 6, 1858.] 

It will be seen by the proceedings in the House of Repre- 
sentatives on Friday night that the game of intimidation and 
violence has been begun by the slave-drivers on the floor of the 
House of Representatives at "Washington. Mr. Grow, of Penn- 
sylvania, for a civil and proper assertion of his rights as repre- 
sentative on the floor of the House, was assailed and had his 
throat clutched by Keitt, of South Carolina, who, if we may judge 
from South Carolina practice hitherto, probably designed to dirk 
or shoot Mr. Grow. Mr. Grow, however, frustrated any such 
intention by suddenly knocking his assailant down. 

Fortius summary chastisement of Keitt's insolence Mr. Grow 
deserves unqualified commendation. The only wonder is that 
he escaped with his life. This Keitt belongs to a trained band 
of Southern assassins, one of whom assaulted Senator Sumner. 
Keitt stood by on that occasion with his hand on his pistol, which 
projected half-way from his coat pocket behind, with the mani- 
fest design of co-operating with Brooks ; and if Sumner had not 
been at once disabled, but had retained strength enough to reach 
his assailant, it was clearly the purpose of Keitt to have shot the 
senator on the spot. We have always regarded it as sheer acci- 
dent that the murderous purposes of the assassins were not car- 
ried out on that occasion by the death of Mr. Sumner from the 
ball of a revolver. On the present occasion the prompt action 
of Mr. Grow probably frustrated a similar purpose. We pre- 
sume this to be but the beginning of a series of transactions of a 



380 INCREASE OF TEE ARMY. [Feb. 

similar character, if the opposition to the admission of Kansas as 
a Slave State is persisted in by the members from the Free States. 



thp: army. 

[From the New York Tribune of February 10, 1858.] 

What is the case before the country as regards the army ? 
It now consists of 18,000 men. The Administration asks that 
five more regiments shall be added to the permanent force. The 
Senate Committee have reported a bill granting 25,000 men in 
all. For what 1 The Administration and the Senate Committee, 
headed by Mr. Jeiferson Davis, say because the military neces- 
sities of the country require it. But what military necessities ? 
Is it the Mormon rebellion? "Oh, no," say the Administra- 
tion, and so says Mr. Jefferson Davis. What then ? " The army 
is not large enough to protect our extended frontiers, and to put 
down the Indians." But let our readers see what General 
Houston and Mr. Toombs, of Georgia, have to say on this head, 
for neither will be accused of being governed by mere partisan 
views in discussing the question. Their remarks will be found 
elsewhere in to-day's paper. 

Let it be observed that no increase of the army is called for 
by the Administration or the Army Committee of the Senate on 
the ground of the Mormon difficulties. The increase is asked 
purely on the general ground of the necessity of permanently 
enlarging the army. Against such an increase many of the 
most distinguished men in Congress have vehemently protested, 
and we think with entire propriety and justice. Among them 
are Messrs. Hale and Fessenden, Republicans, and Toombs and 
Houston among the Democrats. The general considerations on 
this side are presented by Mr. Toombs with a masterly brevity 
and force, while the specific objections to the use of detachments 
of the regular army for frontier service are depicted by General 
Houston with a distinctness and point which could only arise 
from a thorough knowledge of the subject. 

We think the position of Mr. Fessenden on this question 
wholly impregnable, and that is briefly this : "If the Adminis- 
tration wants an increase of the standing army, let it say for 
what purpose, and let Congress judge of the necessity. If the 



1858] ARMY TOO LARGE NOW. 381 

state of affairs in Utah demands the increase, let the Adminis- 
tration say so. If the troops are not needed to quell the Mor- 
mons, but are needed for something else, let that something be 
specified. But if there is no specific necessity, but only a gen- 
eral sentiment or wish for the increase, or some hidden purpose 
concealed in the demand, then let the increase be peremptorily 
denied." Such is the substance of Senator Fessenden's views, 
and they are sound. We do not want an increase of the army 
on any general grounds. It is too large now. The army is as 
dangerous to public liberty here as it is elsewhere, and as it has 
always been in all ages. It is absurd to pretend that the people 
of this country hold or can hold any exemption from the uni- 
form experience of mankind. The army is the great engine of 
oppression wielded by all governments. And, as has been well 
observed by Mr. Hale in the Senate debate, in these days of 
steam and railroads, an army of 25,000 men is a more effective 
weapon for the subjugation of the people than 100,000 were fifty 
years ago. 

In view of the alarming aspect of public affairs — in view of 
the conspiracies against freedom which the repeal of the Missouri 
Compromise has hatched — in view of the determined purpose of 
the Federal Administration to plant slavery in Kansas, and then 
subject the people there to as gross a military despotism as any- 
where bears sway in Europe or Asia — these general considera- 
tions have a startling force. The demand for an increase of the 
army at such a juncture as this is to be looked upon with alarm. 
We have no faith in the discernment of those who would sing 
lullabies to the public suspicion amid such events as are now 
transpiring around us. The mercenaries of the federal govern- 
ment are kept in Kansas to support fraud and put down the 
right. There is no fraternity of feeling between the free people 
of Kansas and our rulers and masters at "Washington. They are 
despised and treated with contumely both in the Senate and at 
the White House. They are described as insurgents and rebels, 
fit only for the halter and the knife. The President so regards 
them ; senators so regard them. Should Kansas be admitted 
under the Lecompton Constitution, the army will be let loose 
upon them without hesitation, and in that spirit of remorseless 
cruelty that marks every footstep of slavery. 



382 JEFF DA VIS'S POLICY. [Feb. 

Is this a time, then, to favor the increase of the army and 
augment federal power? We protest against the assertion that 
the Kansas question is so near a conclusion that we can treat this 
subject without any reference to the difficulties in that long ha- 
rassed Territory. On the contrary, it is all-important that the 
question should be at least postponed till the Lecompton swindle 
is disposed of, and the slave interest develops its policy after it 
shall have succeeded in enslaving Kansas. Mr. Buchanan inti- 
mates that if that State is now admitted he shall withdraw the 
troops. We do not know whether Mr. Buchanan is truthful 
here or not. But one thing we do know ; his masters and our 
masters will permit no such thing as withdrawing the troops. 
Are they ready to see their darling scheme of establishing sla- 
very in Kansas, which they have toiled for, lied for, swindled 
for, robbed and murdered for so long, blown to the wind in a 
day ? By no means. If they succeed they will have established 
a despotism in Kansas by means of the army, and they mean to 
perpetuate it by means of the army. These men have not 
played their stupendous game of fraud and infamy for nothing. 
Jeiferson Davis, as Secretary of War under Pierce, and now as 
Chairman of the Military Committee, has manipulated and is 
manipulating the army with a steady view to " crushing out" 
the opposition to slavery in Kansas and elsewhere. This was the 
daily boast of his colleague dishing, during Pierce's adminis- 
tration. That purpose lies next the heart of the slave power, 
and Mr. Buchanan is its facile instrument. Mr. Toombs does 
not join in Davis's peculiar scheme because he is fearful it will 
not work, and that when the machinery is well established there 
is danger it may fall into the wrong hands. Hence his opposi- 
tion. But the root and fountain of the present attempt to en- 
large the army is a covert, deep-seated, malignant purpose to 
subdue, conquer, and " crush out" the opposition to slavery in 
the Free States. It is intended to set this power in motion as 
opportunity offers. Kansas is the theatre chosen for its first ex- 
ercise, if it be admitted under the Lecompton Constitution. 

All general and all special considerations thus conspire to an- 
imate the most determined opposition to an increase of the 
army. We want no such standing army as is proposed under 
any circumstances. It is an anomaly in our form of govern- 



1858] PUBLIC MEETING CALLED. 383 

ment. If we have any service of a warlike nature to be per- 
formed, give us volunteers and nothing else. 



POLITICAL DEBAUCHERY. 

[From the New York Tribune of February 27.] 

This city is rotten from centre to circumference. At least 
one would naturally arrive at this conclusion from reading the 
published list of names attached to a call for a public meeting to 
sustain the Lecompton Constitution. Perhaps we ought in 
charity to set down a portion of this gratuitous homage to vil- 
lainy, to stolidity and ignorance. There is an instinct of conser- 
vatism in the well-to-do circles which has no perception of duty 
beyond sustaining the public authorities, whatever they may do 
or advise. All noodledom has an idea that opposition to them is 
disorganizing and dangerous, and leads to a disruption of the 
social fabric. This conviction leads blindfold many a fool. It 
is charitable to believe this to be pre-eminently true of this city, 
and we are willing to accept the idea in lieu of a conviction that 
would go far to undermine our faith in all mankind. 

We have before us a list of those who have signed the call 
referred to, and who have thus assumed the unenviable position 
of defending the most unblushing public fraud of our day. 
These gentlemen have stepped from private circles before the 
public to indorse the concentrated essence of Kansas scoundrelism, 
and we hold them to their proper responsibility. Here are re- 
spectable gentlemen of wealth and standing, holding no public 
station and wanting none, who come boldly out and declare that 
John Calhoun's Constitution ought to be put immediately in 
force over the people of Kansas, whether they like it or not. 
They fully adopt and approve the results of years of fraud, vio- 
lence, outrage and crime. They sustain the fruits of a political 
conspiracy conducted and perfected by drunken, armed vaga- 
bonds, whose presence in their counting-rooms or offices, their 
halls or their ante-chambers, they would not for an instant tol- 
erate. They put themselves before the world confederates and 
accomplices, after the fact, of the most intolerable villainies, the 
most shameless outrages, the most scandalous frauds ever per- 
petrated in our political history. Placed in no position or rela- - 



384 NEW YORKERS BY NAME. [Feb. 

tion to public affairs that demands an expression or an intimation 
of their judgment they nevertheless volunteer their support and 
rush to the aid of these signal iniquities. Let us see who some 
of these gentlemen are. Not to be invidious, we will go pretty 
extensively into the list. We find there the names of Messrs. 
Henry Grinnell, E. Caylus, Barclay & Livingston, Charles 
O'Conor, Robert J. Dillon, John A. Dix, Moses Taylor, Gar- 
diner J. Howland, August Belmont, Watts Sherman, Samuel L. 
Post, Jr., John Van Buren, L. Delmonico, Stewart Brown, 
Matthew Morgan, Charles Augustus Davis, Robert Grade, 
Gerard Stuyvesant, Isaac Townsend, Richard Busteed, James 
Lee, A. Eickhoff, James M. Brown, C. A. Secor, C. Melletta, 
J. A. Machado, Royal Phelps, Gerard Hallock, Henry G. Steb- 
bins, " and thirty-three hundred others." Of those among this 
body of gentlemen who have obtained political preferment, or 
who yet expect to obtain it by such service as this, we have 
nothing now to say. They sell for pay. But we wish to ask 
gentlemen of probity, of character, like Mr. Henry Grinnell and 
Mr. Moses Taylor and Mr. Gardiner Howland and Mr. E. 
Caylus, who are opposed to forgery in private, why they desire 
to sustain it in public affairs ? Is cheating and swindling any 
better in Kansas than it is on South Street, that they should 
countenance and approve it there while they would denounce it 
here ? Is the disgusting villainy of ballot-stuffing, of wholesale 
lying among the members of a public convention assembled to 
create a State constitution, of copying a volume of a city di- 
rectory and returning the names as the voters at a precinct where 
not a handful of men were present, of shamelessly counting in 
and counting out members of Convention and Legislature, with- 
out reference to their election, any more praiseworthy in Kansas 
than in New York? Do you say that you do not know that the 
Lecompton Constitution is the result of a fraud like these, and 
worse than these ? Gentlemen, you do know it. We do not 
claim that you are especially intelligent in political matters. 
But no man is so ignorant that he does not know it. There is 
not a political bruiser of the Sixth Ward who does not know it. 
But do you say you are opposed to the Black Republicans, and 
that you think the best way of settling the Kansas question is to 
admit that Territory as a State as soon as possible ? Yery well, 



1858] APPROVING VILLAINY. 385 

gentlemen, who opposes the admission of Kansas as a State ? 
Are not all parties anxious for that ? Does anybody, anywhere 
on our side, ask that any thing more or less shall be done than to 
submit the two constitutions framed in Kansas to a fair vote of 
the people, and that that Territory shall be admitted as a State 
at once under whichever Constitution the people shall choose to 
adopt ? Does anybody anywhere, among the opponents of the 
Lecompton Constitution, ask any thing more than that it shall be 
submitted to the people for ratification before going into opera- 
tion ? Is this to hinder or obstruct the settlement of the Kansas 
question ? Nothing is now asked by the opponents of the Kansas 
villainies but that the people of that Territory shall be allowed to 
have peace and quiet and manage their affairs in their own way. 
It is the opposition to their doing this that alone hinders the 
quiet and immediate settlement of the whole Kansas question. 
It is the outrageous attempts to consummate the gigantic frauds 
of which that Territory has been for years the theatre, by im- 
posing a hated Constitution upon an unwilling people, which 
you, gentlemen, and your confederates are now sustaining, that 
makes all the difficulty and continues all the agitation now exist- 
ing in the country on this subject. 

We say, then, that for what you are doing you have not a 
shadow of an excuse, and that your volunteered approval of the 
plan of admitting Kansas under the Lecompton Constitution 
makes you sharers and participators in the guilt of crimes which 
should make the nation blush. But, gentlemen, your responsi- 
bility does not stop here. By your public acts, you are delib- 
erately undermining public and private virtue — you are shaking 
the pillars of national integrity. How do you appear before the 
country ? Why, as substantial citizens, honorable citizens, 
honest citizens, high-minded citizens, claiming consideration for 
those moral qualities that adorn private life; yet under no pres- 
sure of party or personal exigency, deliberately coming out, and, 
under your own signature, voluntarily indorsing and approving 
the crimes of lying, fraud, and forgery. And it is not done in a 
corner. Every ballot-box stuffer, every political swindler and 
renegade in the country knows it. Every liquorish scoundrel 
who makes politics a trade and cheating at elections a practice 
knows it. Every contemptible pipe-layer and political intriguer 



386 RISING TIDE OF CRIME. [March 

knows it. Yes, gentlemen ; and they must henceforth regard 
the benevolent authors of Arctic expeditions, the Howlands, the 
Dillons, the Shermans, the Posts, as men who not only wink at 
such frauds as they practise, and for which they inwardly feel 
and know they deserve the penitentiary, but absolutely approve 
them. The subterranean vaults of crime underlying society 
everywhere grow resonant with applause over such accessions of 
respectability, such homage to open-handed villainy. Gentle- 
men signers of the meeting to approve the final results of intensi- 
fied border-ruffianism, who profess to hold your heads high in 
society as men of character, we leave you to settle this matter 
with your own consciences. Go on in your corrupting and de- 
moralizing process, and how long think you it will be before you 
will find you have sown the wind to reap the whirlwind ? Pro- 
fessing to have a stake in society, you prostrate the standard of 
public morality, prostitute your own characters, break down the 
barriers between honesty and dishonesty, and then wonder, will 
you, at the rising tide of crime and general debauchery ? 



REOPENING THE SLAVE-TKADE. 

[From the New York Tribune of March 5.] 

Keopening the slave-trade with Africa is freely advocated by 
the Southern papers. Among the most prominent in the list is 
the Richmond Whig. The trade in negroes is such a common 
one in Virginia that the advocacy of its extension by the jour- 
nals of that State is nowise unnatural. Indeed, negroes are the 
most important article of Virginia commerce. About 15,000 of 
them are sold to other States annually. Being mostly adults, 
their value does not fall short of $15,000,000 per annum. This 
is a lucrative crop ; more lucrative, indeed, than any other pro- 
duct of the State. Virginia's chief revenue is, in fact, derived 
from the sale of her population. It brings more by far to the 
coffers of her citizens than is received from all other sources of 
production. The entire corn crop of the State is not worth over 
ten millions, the tobacco crop not over four or five millions, the 
wheat crop less than ten millions. Of the corn and wheat of 
course a very large proportion is consumed on the soil. Tobacco 



1858] VIRGINIA AND TEE SLAVE-TRADE. 387 

and negroes are thus the chief articles of export, and they stand, 
as above stated, say fifteen million dollars' worth of negroes, and 
perhaps four millions worth of tobacco. Add to these a million 
dollars' worth of quadruped live stock, and we have the bulk of 
Virginia's exports. 

In view of these facts we have looked with some amazement 
at the want of consideration exhibited by the spectacle of a Vir- 
ginia newspaper advocating the opening of the negro traffic with 
Africa. The Whig of Richmond, familiar with the profits of 
dealing in this kind of stock, very naturally imagines that the 
more the State has of it the better ; but, like most Southern cal- 
culators where trade is concerned, it exhibits great short-sighted- 
ness. According to the Whig, Virginia is short of laborers. 
The high price they bring is, it argues, evidence that they are 
scarce. They are sold to other States ; and the way to remedy 
the difficulty is to import fresh supplies from Africa. But did 
it never occur to the Whig that if Virginia may replenish her 
■stock of negroes in this way so may the Gulf States which now 
absorb Virginia's surplus ? And what then ? Why, that the 
price of that article of merchandise would suddenly fall from 
81200 a head to $200. Did this very occult view of the case 
never cross the mental vision of our respected contemporary ? 
Virginia sells now 1500 negroes per annum at the average rate 
of $1000 a head. They bring to the mother of States and of 
statesmen $15,000,000 per annum. Suppose the same article, 
bating the F. F. V. blood in their veins, can be drawn from 
Dahomey or the Gaboon for $200 a head, what then becomes 
of the fifteen millions now received and spent by the whites of 
the Old Dominion ? 

We assure the Whig that however the reopening of the slave- 
trade with the African coast may suit the purposes of the buyers 
•of flesh and bone, it will never do for the raisers and sellers 
thereof. Virginia is declining and decrepit enough as things 
now stand, with an annual revenue of fifteen millions from the 
sale of her own sons and daughters. Deprive her of this and 
what will become of the great stock-growing interest there ? 
what will become of the Virginia that W3 know, the great slave- 
holding, slave-breeding, slavery-extending, slavery-sustaining 
Virginia of modern times ? She will be sacrificed at a blow. 



388 DISUNION AS A BUGBEAR. [March 

Her revenues, which we now set down at twenty millions, will 
then be reduced to five millions. She will be driven to the mis- 
erable necessity of retaining and maintaining her own growing 
population. Deprived of the glorious privilege of selling off her 
own children at remunerative prices, what will become of the 
miserable remnant of prosperity that remains to that most ancient 
and renowned commonwealth ? The Whig must review its con- 
clusions touching the opening of the African slave-trade, or we 
fear it will ere long be set down as a more malignant enemy of 
Virginia than the most rabid Abolitionist alive. 



THE ARMY" WANTED FOR KANSAS. 
[From the New York Tribune of March 6.] 

An extraordinary degree of sensibility is manifested by the 
leading organs of the Administration over the accident which 
recently befell the Army bill in the Senate. The defeat of the 
bill we are solemnly told is a malignant ' ' conspiracy against the 
government " and " a disunion movement of the most repulsive 
description." The disunion bugbear has hitherto only been 
brought out to serve the slave-holders and promote the spread of 
their favorite institution. But now it is ruthlessly dragged from 
its depository to terrify us on a very common occasion. We 
submit that this is making use of a valuable adjunct in quite 
too miscellaneous a manner. We pray gentlemen will let 
modest legislators vote on small matters without terrifying them 
by so dreadful a scarecrow. The next thing we shall know dis- 
union will be threatened on a motion for adjournment. And 
then what is to become of us ? 

The border-ruffian journal of the commercial circles in this 
city is very prompt in its response to that opposition to the in- 
crease of the army which is based on the idea of forcing the 
troops out of Kansas It speaks as follows : 

"We should hope, for the credit of our country and of the Senate, that 
the number of those who do not desire that the Mormon rebellion should 
be suppressed, is exceedingly small. That those who have sympathized 
with Jim Lane and his treasonable associates in Kansas should try ' to force 
the Government to withdraw the troops ' from that Territory, so that their 
friends may have full power to murder and plunder all who differ from 



1858] QUELLING TRAITORS. 389 

them, and to set the law of the land at defiance, we can readily believe. 
To such men the dignity of their country, the honor of the army, the safety 
of the troops now exposed to hardship and danger, and the protection 
from the savage of our border settlements, are matters of very small impor- 
tance compared with the triumph of their selfish, sectional views. We 
hope, however, that there is sufficient patriotism in Congress to defeat any 
such combination, and that both the rebels in Utah and the traitors in 
Kansas may be made to feel that the federal arm is long enough and strong 
enough to reach and punish them. ' ' 

We see here plainly enough the animus of the proposition to 
increase the army. It is openly avowed that the object of it is 
to make the " traitors in Kansas feel that the federal arm is long 
enough and strong enough to reach and punish them." After 
this avowal we think we ought not to be compelled to urge very 
warmly a steady and unanimous denial on the part of the Repub- 
licans in Congress of any increase in the army whatever. If 
the business of quelling ' ' traitors in Kansas, ' ' or elsewhere, is to 
be undertaken, we ask for nothing more than fair play all around. 
In our judgment the real traitors in the case are the scamps who 
are undertaking to force the majority to submit to the minority, 
and they who are backing them, whether in Kansas or New York 
City. The greatest of traitors are traitors to principle, traitors 
to truth, traitors to honesty, traitors to integrity ; and if bullets 
are to be fired and blood to be shed, we ask that all "traitors" 
shall be served alike. If "Jim Lane" is to be shot, so must 
be Gerard, Hallock, Henry Grinnell, and the "three hundred 
and thirty-three others." We have had quite enough of this 
sort of talk about quelling " traitors" by a hired soldiery. If the 
Journal of Commerce or any other journal is anxious for civil 
war, let it not be too confident as to who will be regarded as the 
"traitors" in the contest. They had much better be ready in 
such an event to take their chance of being found among the 
executed as well as among the executioners. If they are anxious 
to hang, let them consider that they may also stand a most excel- 
lence chance of being hanged, and let this moderate their ardor 
for amusement in that line. For our own part we have an in- 
ward conviction that the majority of this country is bound to 
rule, and not be ruled, either by minorities at home or federal 
power from abroad ; and whenever the business of crushing ma- 
jorities, whether in Kansas or elsewhere, is undertaken by the 



390 THE REVIVED SLAVE-TRADE. [March 

use of powder and ball, on the ground of putting down " rebel- 
lion" or quelling "traitors," the gentlemen who undertake it 
will find they have got more than they bargained for. We are, 
however, entirely opposed to granting troops for the purpose of 
having the experiment tried, not because we fear the result of 
the trial, but for reasons of a totally different character. 



SLAVE-TRADE IN VIRGINIA. 
[From the New York Tribune of March 7.] 

Is the slave-trade any thing so new or so astonishing in this 
country that the whole world should stand agape at the announce- 
ment that it has been reopened at the South ? When was the 
slave-trade ever closed in this happy land ? There are laws on 
the statute-book against importing negroes from Africa ; but 
what laws are there against shipping the same article from the 
ports of Baltimore or Norfolk to Mobile, New Orleans, or Gal- 
veston ? None whatever. The slave-trade is just as " open" 
in the Southern States as any other trade. It never was other- 
wise. And pray what is the vast difference between shipping 
negroes by sea, chained for market, on a twenty days' voyage 
from Baltimore into the Gulf of Mexico, and shipping them for 
the same purposes in the same way on a voyage of forty days 
from the Gaboon River to the lagoons of Florida ? Isn't it six 
of one and half a dozen of the other? Slavery is slavery, and 
the slave-trade the slave-trade, and nothing more and nothing 
less can be made of them wheresoever they exist. They are 
horrible and disgusting wherever they are, and whether near 
or remote, foreign or domestic, makes not a particle of differ- 
ence. That men should be able to wink at the diabolical efforts 
to fix the cancer of slavery upon our Western Territories, and 
yet profess horror at the intimation that a little traffic in flesh 
and bones was about being opened with the African coast, is 
only one more instance of human weakness and human incon- 
sistency. 

Whether the traffic in negroes can be successfully carried on 
between our Southern coast and the coast of Africa we do not 
know and cannot conjecture. This trade would be against law. 



1858] RICHMOND WHIG'S VIEWS. 391 

But so is the same traffic against law between Africa and Cuba. 
But it is carried on in the markets of the latter with great suc- 
cess. Why may not the same thing be done on the opposite 
shores of the Gulf of Mexico ? Are the planters of the Ked Eiver 
any more virtuous than those of Cuba? Have Alabama and 
Mississippi conscientious scruples against supplying the annual 
waste of human life on their plantations in the cheapest way '( 
And if they can get African negroes at $200 or $300 by a little 
connivance and a little stealth will they refuse, and insist upon 
having Virginia or Maryland stock at $1000 or $1200 a head ? 
The whole case will turn upon the question whether the slave- 
buying or the slave-breeding interests dominate in the adminis- 
tration of the federal government. Put Mr. Jefferson Davis at 
the head of it, and the slave-trade will nourish. Put Mr. Hunter 
there, and the interests of Virginia will put the boot on the 
other leg. 

As we observed a da} 7 or two ago, the Richmond Whig has 
lately undertaken the advocacy of the African traffic. We 
showed the stupidity of its position, and it will soon be found 
that all Virginia will be clamorous against the African slave-trade 
the moment it begins to flourish in the Gulf, as, according to the 
New Orleans Delta, it speedily will. Virginia will hold on to her 
present monopoly of this business, and the Whig will be forced 
to take the back track. Let it study the statistics of its own 
State, or those of the State of Maryland, and it will discover that 
the opening of the African slave-trade will make both of them 
Free States in a very short period. There is no possibility of 
keeping Virginia a Slave State but by keeping up the price of 
negroes. This was foreseen and announced by Mr. Upshur as 
long ago as 1829 in a Virginia Convention, and made the ground 
of an argument at the time in favor of taking Texas. The 
amount of money received by Virginia for the sale of negroes at 
high prices is almost incredible. It is a most extraordinary fact, 
but one nevertheless true, and demonstrated by the statistics of 
the census, that since the time of that declaration of Mr. Up- 
shur, Virginia has received as much money for the sale of her 
population to other States, as all the present taxable property of 
the State, real and personal, amounts to. In 1830 Virginia had 
470,000 slaves. In 1850, 472,000. In 1858 it is estimated the 



392 TRADE OF VIRGINIA IN SLAVES. [March 

State has no more, and it is said not so many. The average in- 
crease of the slave population of the country is 30 per Gent at 
every decade, or 3 per cent per annum. Since the average 
throughout the country is so much, in Virginia, which is a breed- 
ing rather than a working State, it is of course more — the waste 
of life being greatest in the sugar and rice States. But only es- 
timating the increase at 3 per cent per annum, we find that since 
1829 Virginia has produced from her then stock of slaves an 
increase of 87 per cent, or 409,000. Of this increase none or 
next to none remain in the State. Of course they have been sold 
to go elsewhere, and the census tables show plainly enough 
where. They have gone to Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, 
Texas, and to other States South. The sales of slaves are like 
all other stock sales, those of grown animals, adults. Virginia 
adults have for many years averaged in the market over $1000 
a head. At $1000 apiece these 409,000 negroes would produce 
$409,000,000. This is probably not far from the sum Virginia 
has received from the sale of her population since 1829, or in 
twenty-nine years. The taxable value of the entire landed and 
personal estate of Virginia in 1850, according to the census of 
that year, is $382,000,000, or some five-and-twenty millions less 
than the State has received from the sale to other States of her 
inhabitants within the last thirty years. And even this dimin- 
ished sum includes the value of all her present stock of slaves. 

We doubt if the civilized world can furnish a parallel to this 
stupendous example of general thriftlessness and universal bank- 
ruptcy. Here is a State containing about a million of free peo- 
ple, consuming every thirty years all that it produces during 
that period, and the sum of $400,000,000 in addition ; which 
four hundred millions it raises by selling off its growing popula- 
tion to other States. Can this exhibition of magnificent poverty 
be matched anywhere ? Virginia, under her present system of 
labor, does not pay her own way or defray her own expenses by 
the sum of thirteen or fourteen millions of dollars per annum. 
This deficiency, we see, is made up by disposing of her negroes 
at $1000 a head, and even at this high price the State is barely 
able to make both ends meet by selling off her entire annual in- 
crease of slave stock. Are not slavery-loving Virginians insane, 
therefore, to advocate a policy which will utterly destroy this last 



1858] LETTER FROM FITZ-HENRY WARREN. 393 

miserable mainstay of Virginia solvency ? Reduce the price of 
negroes to $200 or $300 a head, as would be done by opening 
the trade with the King of Dahomey, and what would become of 
slave-holding Virginia then ? The negroes would have to be 
packed off to lower latitudes, and the whites would have to go 
to work. The reduction of the price of slaves, no matter how 
produced, whether by opening the trade with Africa or the de- 
cline in the price of cotton, would inevitably result in freeing all 
the slave-breeding States. 

This exposition makes it manifest that the question of the 
African slave-trade has two sides to it at the South, and shows 
that its opening depends entirely upon which of two great 
Southern interests dominates in the federal government. If 
Mr. Buchanan's Administration should approve the project, we 
have no doubt that Messrs. Henry Grinnell, Matthew Morgan, J. 
H. Brower, John A. Dix, John Yan Buren, Robert J. Dillon, 
Moses Taylor, "Watts Sherman, Charles A. Davis, Stewart 
Brown, and thirty-three hundred others would voluntarily come 
forward to call a meeting at Tammany to strengthen the hands 
•of the President in that virtuous undertaking. "Why not ? The 
act would not be half so mean as the one they have just per- 
formed in this line, for it would be dignified by the selfish pur- 
pose of promoting their own interests at a period of uncommon 
commercial dearth. 



[From Fitz-Henry Warren.] 

Burlington, Iowa, March 10, 1858. 

My Dear Pike : Your printer does not, perhaps, make me any more 
•of an ass than I deserve, but certainly enough so to fill the ambition of a 
man much less aspiring than myself. As I intend to make a handsome 
mention of him in my last will and testament, I hope that he will make 
"an effort" to keep me from being indicted for a wilful murder of 
syntax and prosody. 

Uncle Truman proposes to bring out his deferred speech on 
Douglas. This, enlarged by extracts from the editorials of the Tribune, 
will make an irresistible campaign document, and place the " Little 
•Giant" on a pair of substantial pegs for his long travel to the White 
House. This arrangement carried out, I think the republic might be 
spared for another presidential term, at least. 



394 SENATOR SEWARD'S GENERALITIES. [March 

I shall send you another letter this week. The Tribune is going 
down for want of writers of distinguished talent. I intend to supply 
the deficiency. Console your printer by the assurance that all extra 
suffering here will be deducted from the amount inflicted in the next 
world. It is only diluting over a longer period. 

Where is Congdon ? I miss his small-sword practice from the edi- 
torial page. 

Yours truly, Fitz-Henry Warren. 



SENATORS SEWARD AND COLLAMER. 
[From the New York Tribune of March 13.] 

We have already published Senator Seward's last speech, and 
have expressed our commendation of it in such general terms as 
we think it deserved. There are some points of it, however, to 
which we do not yield our assent ; and to avoid misinterpretation 
we wish to allude to them. But first we wish to express our 
dislike to the system of generalizing upon subjects of immediate 
interest that require practical treatment, into which some states- 
men and legislators are prone to fall. For example, we dislike 
to be told, as we were by the late Mr. Webster, that the laws of 
climate are against the spread of slavery in certain latitudes, and 
that therefore it is not worth while to concern ourselves in the 
passage of specific enactments to exclude that very peculiar in- 
stitution from such latitudes. We thank no man for thrusting 
a general principle in our face as a reply to a proposal to do a 
reasonable act. Instead of the late Mr. Webster, therefore, who 
was against " Wilmot," in the cases of Utah and New Mexico, we 
prefer the former Mr. Webster, who, before he became subli- 
mated in his principles of legislation, advocated and applied a 
"Wilmot" to Oregon. 

M. Guizot, while managing the political affairs of Louis 
Philippe, was fond, according to his mental habit, of dealing in 
generalities, and acting on his theories, instead of dealing with 
the actual facts of his situation. Thus, immediately before the 
revolution which sent his master into a precipitate and unantici- 
pated retirement, the philosophic statesman, instead of pene- 
trating, as it was his duty to have done, the actual circumstances 
around him, busied himself in composing essays to demonstrate, 



1853] SENATOR COLLAMER S PHILOSOPHY. 395 

by an exposition of the broad concatenations of historical pro- 
gress, that a revolution at that juncture was impossible. His 
philosophic exposition and the news of the revolution got pub- 
licity in several distant European capitals on the same day. 
Germane to this subject are some observations of that usually 
clear-sighted and hard-headed Yankee, Senator Collamer, of 
Vermont. He is a man who generally goes directly to the point 
and makes his blows tell as certainly and effectively as any man 
in the Senate. But even he took to philosophizing a few days 
ago after this fashion : 

" I cannot but say at times, that if we look at the subject of African 
slavery on a broad and liberal scale, and with reference to great periods in 
the progress of the world, it is after all a very small subject, a very little 
affair. I think from the footprints they have left behind, it is obvious that 
the family of man makes around this earth great cycles of revolution. They 
follow the setting sun. The human family are prompted by reasons which 
they cannot control and which they hardly understand. Their progress is 
from the east westward. At the present moment the great exodus of 
Europe, which is throwing its avalanche on this continent, joined with the 
emigrants from the northern and eastern portions of this country, go to 
swell the great tide of emigration. The family of man is led out to possess 
its great patrimony. It is going around the earth, and the little accidental 
colonization of a few Africans here, compared with this, is nothing but 
small eddies along the margin of the great stream. It is a small matter in 
the long run, but it seems to be enough to agitate our day and our time, 
though I can hardly consider it worthy of the great attention and deep re- 
gard of philosophic statesmen." 

Now, part of this is harmless, part of it stands directly in the 
way of the senator's legislative duty, and the whole of it is false. 
In respect to the first clause of the statement — that history 
shows the movement of population to be uniformly toward the 
west — it is not true. Taking the generally-received idea — that 
the original sources of population lie to the westward of the 
Indus — which, we presume, Senator Collamer does not reject, 
we perceive that the great currents of population have flowed 
eastward from that source, rather than to the west. The largest 
portion of the great human hive lies in India and China, and 
not in Europe and America. Population has not, then, thus 
far in its great historic movements, " followed the setting sun." 
It went first and naturally toward its rising. It only took the 



396 SENATOR COLLAMER'S ERROR. [March 

opposite direction when the Eastern Continent and the great 
islands beyond had become occupied. It is the occupation of 
the land that checks emigration ; it is its unoccupied condition 
that invites it. There is no other law in the case. The present 
current westward owes its existence simply to the fact that on 
this continent are unoccupied lands, a salubrious climate, and free 
government. There is no occult or transcendental philosophy 
in the case. 

As to the statement of the senator, that a "little accidental 
colonization of a few Africans" on this continent is but the 
"small eddy of a large stream, deserving no great attention or 
regard from philosophic statesmen," we submit that his " phi- 
losophy " is quite too narrow for the subject. Mr. Collamer 
ought to know that it is not as a stream of emigration that the 
African race has mainly derived consideration on this continent. 
It is their personal condition that gives significance to that race, 
and not by any means solely in reference to themselves either, 
but in reference to the race that holds and proposes to hold them in 
subjection. Yet the Ethiopianizing of this continent is no such 
small fact as the senator seems to regard it. On the contrary, it 
is a great, a stupendous fact. Behold the results of emigration 
from Africa. The numerous and magnificent islands of the 
Caribbean sea, whose situation, beauty of scenery, and fertility 
of soil render them almost the garden of the world, are in Afri- 
can hands. The progress of population shows that they are 
gradually eating out every other race there, and that ultimately 
those islands must be held in their exclusive possession. As 
with them so it is getting to be with extensive portions of South 
America ; so it is with the Gulf States of this Republic ; and so 
it is to be with Central America — all of which countries are sub- 
ject to the same general law of population, and will ultimately 
inherit the same general destiny. The wrong and outrage which 
the African has suffered by being torn from his own country to 
serve the white man's greed will have its compensation, is already 
having it, in the possessions the black man is acquiring on the 
best parts of this continent. While Mr. Collamer has on his 
" philosophical" spectacles, let him cast his glance in the direc- 
tion we have indicated, and perhaps he will discover that the 
present and prospective Africanization of very extensive portions 



1858] MR. SEWARD' 8 PHILOSOPHY. 397 

of this continent now, and in a long hereafter, is no such very 
small fact after all. So far as the slavery of the African race is 
concerned, that has or may have still mightier relations and con- 
sequences, but into that question we shall not enter. We leave 
Mr. Collamer to study it at his leisure. 

Mr. Seward's generalizations are ever abundant. Indeed, he 
is always quite too axiomatic for our taste as a practical states- 
man. The one particular effort in this line in his late speech to 
which we feel especially drawn, which more than another excites 
our surprise is this statement : 

"Mr. President, the expansion of territory to make Slave States will 
only fail to be a great crime because it is impracticable, and therefore will 
turn out to be a stupendous imbecility." 

Mr. Seward here declares it is impracticable to do just what 
the country has been doing during Mr. Seward's own public 
life, and just what the ruling interest declare it is their purpose 
to do in the future. Does Mr. Seward really mean to say that 
either our times or our circumstances, the maxims of our Na- 
tional Administration or the principles of the Constitution as now 
expounded by the federal courts, forbid "the expansion of ter- 
ritory to make Slave States?" Or does he mean to say merely 
that if they are made they will be unmade ? This must be the 
meaning of the senator. But this, it seems to us, is very much 
like declaring that slavery will no longer exist because it will not 
exist forever. The annexers of Texas, authors of Ostend Mani- 
festoes and Central America fillibusters might well laugh in their 
sleeves over such an axiom, in view of the facts of the case. In 
reply to what Mr. Seward says cannot be, they can triumphantly 
point to what is. Was the annexation of Texas an impractica- 
bility and an "imbecility" as regards the spread of slavery? 
Mr. Seward may say so, and undertake to philosophize away 
one of the most pregnant facts of our political history ; but a 
man must get into a very rapt state of mind to believe him. 
Mr. Seward's philosophy is too fine for every-day wear. If the 
men who are striving to convert this government into an engine 
for the spread and perpetuation of slavery are simply engaging 
in an " imbecility, ' ' why need practical statesmen oppose or re- 
sent the effort ? We think President Buchanan in his efforts to 
buy for us or steal for us three or four new Slave States in Cuba, 



398 THE MISSOURI RESTRICTION. [March 

and President Walker, who proposes to rob for us in Central 
America, may well look with great complacency upon the views 
of Senator Seward. We do not wonder that the sappers and 
miners for slavery compliment Mr. Seward upon bis soaring 
speculations ; but while they do this they very industriously 
prosecute their work on earth, and, when Mr. Seward comes 
down, he will understand the meaning of their compliments. 

But, leaving the matter of generalization, we come to a prac- 
tical proposition of our distinguished senator. He proposes the 
reinstatement of the Missouri restriction, and on this point we 
again let him speak for himself : 

" It would be wise to restore the Missouri prohibition of slavery in Kan- 
sas and Nebraska. There was peace in the Territories and in the States 
until that great statute of freedom was subverted." 

One of the principal objections, if not the chief objection, to 
the repeal of the Missouri Compromise was that it would compel 
the Free States to fight a battle for the freedom of the territory 
north of 36° 30', while it had by bargain and sale been once al- 
ready made over to us in perpetuity. We did not want to take 
the trouble, nor incur the risk of loss in this battle. But we 
have had to do both. The result has been favorable. The right 
has triumphed, or is on the eve of a triumph. Money has been 
lavished and valuable lives have been sacrificed. A still greater 
number may yet be taken by a hateful oppression before freedom 
shall be as firmly planted on the territory north of 36° 30' as it 
was before the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. But the ter- 
ritory is again ours. What, then, do we want of an act of Con- 
gress saying freedom shall have what it has won by its own good 
right arm, and intends to keep by the same token ? This would 
be but mockery indeed. But this is not the worst of the prop- 
osition. The restoration of the Missouri restriction takes with it 
its original implications. These were that slavery should have 
the territory south of that line. But these implications have 
been destroyed in the contest, and freedom is now as free to 
carry its conquests South as it was to make them where it has 
made them. Do we desire to relinquish this advantage ? We 
do relinquish it if we restore the Missouri restriction. Most cer- 
tainly we are entirely opposed to any such proposition at this 
stage of the slavery contest. We have suffered every possible 



1858] GOVERNOR HAMMOND. 399 

evil that could be suffered from the repeal, and now, if we can 
obtain any benefits from it, we are certainly entitled to them, and 
should be indeed "imbecile" to voluntarily forego such advan- 
tages. 



AN ARISTOCRATIC DEMOCRAT. 
[From the New York Tribune of March 15.] 

South Carolina has sent a fresh theorizer to the seat of gov- 
ernment in the person of Governor Hammond, her last-elected 
senator. The governor is a gentleman of wealth, character, and 
respectability. We have been favorably impressed by at least 
one declaration he has made since he took his seat. This is that 
any investigation of the frauds in Kansas would, in his opinion, 
" end in nothing but inflicting almost unendurable disgrace on the 
United States." So far as we have seen, this is the best reason 
for not making such an investigation that has been given on the 
Lecompton side of the House. 

For several years Governor Hammond has been in retire- 
ment, cultivating his extensive possessions. During this period 
he does not seem to have either enlarged or liberalized his ideas. 
The modes of thought which he carried with him into private 
life, and which were then warmed by the glow of enthusiasm 
and passion, seem to have only changed in this — they are now 
rigid and hardened. It is the soft mud of a bad road frozen 
into ruts and ridges. The way is not better, but worse in con- 
sequence. 

The ex-governor occupied the greater part of his speech on 
Lecompton with an exposition of the capacity of the Slave States 
to establish and maintain what he called ' ' a separate political 
organization." This is a common topic of abstract inquiry with 
South Carolinians, and we do not object to it, though its special 
relevancy to the question of admitting Kansas into the Union 
under a fraudulent Constitution we do not perceive. In this re- 
view Mr. Hammond went over the old ground of Southern the- 
orists, and reproduced with little change and no novelty the vari- 
ous considerations going to show how admirably a Southern 
slave-holding government would work in practice. For our 
part, as a general proposition, we have no hesitation in admitting 






400 GOVERNOR HAMMOND'S FALLACY. [March 

that the Southern States are able to maintain, in one way or 
another, an independent government of their own. How power- 
ful it would be or how prosperous is a question upon which there- 
will be diversity of opinion. Governor Hammond has the good 
sense to admit that its strength would not consist in its lighting 
power. He gives it a high prospective rank among the nations, 
however, on the ground that, as he declares, " Cotton is king," 
and a king with whom none can afford to go to war. The reign 
of this monarch will thus, as Governor Hammond thinks, be not 
only eternal, but eternally pacific. 

But we cannot allow one fallacy of Governor Hammond to go 
unreproved and unexposed, especially as it is one that the slave- 
holding statesmen are forever putting forward. We mean the 
notion that foreign exports are the measure of a country's wealth 
and power. We cannot understand how it is that gentlemen of 
intelligence can so tenaciously insist on this dismal fallacy. 
What can be plainer than that it is the aggregate production of a 
country that constitutes its wealth, and is the real measure of its 
power ? Exports are nothing but the exchange of products that 
are produced, for products that are not produced by the export- 
ing country. Diversify production sufficiently in any country, 
and no exports or exchanges with foreign countries are necessary. 
Simplify production by confining, it to one or two staples, and ex- 
changes for foreign productions or exports must be proportionally 
large. But is this to be taken as any evidence that the country 
that has a varied production is poor, and the country that has not 
is rich ? Yet such is substantially the deduction of economists 
who count exports as evidence of wealth. If they were right, 
then an island in the ocean whose entire population was engaged in 
the oyster or whale fishery, and who by dint of hard work and 
poor fare were able to make both ends meet at the end of a year, 
could point to their exports wherewith they bought their pork, 
and hard bread, and tarpaulins, as an evidence of their abundant 
prosperity, because their earnings were comparatively so large. 
This is just the kind of prosperity the South exhibits in her ex- 
ported surplus. She raises cotton, but she can neither eat nor 
spin it, and hence it goes abroad to buy what she wants to eat 
and to wear. 

But this is not all. A country where industry is not diversi- 



1858] MASSACHUSETTS AND VIRGINIA. 401 

fied, but where production is confined to one or two, or a very 
few staples, is constantly in a precarious condition. A failure 
of its chief crop for a single year spreads bankruptcy and fam- 
ine. A threatened war fills it with dismay ; an actual one with 
ruin. The country of large exports in proportion to its produc- 
tion is thus the weakest of countries rather than the strongest. 
The country whose products are the most varied, and the gross 
result of whose industry is the largest, is that which has the 
greatest amount of all the elements which constitute wealth, 
even though its exports may be comparatively small. But if 
the Southern economists reject so sound a test of the wealth and 
resources of a people, they surely cannot object to estimate them 
by the earned surplus on hand in the form of taxable property. 
If this be done, how stand the Slave and Free States in a com- 
parative estimate ? The State of Massachusetts, with a popula- 
tion of 994,514 in 1850, possessed personal and real estate to 
the amount of $573,342,000. The valuation of the State of 
Virginia, with a population of 1,421,661, at the same period, 
was $391,646,000 ; and this comparison can be almost indefi- 
nitely extended between the Free and Slave States. 

What then becomes of the labored attempt of Governor 
Hammond and his coadjutors to show the comparative wealth 
and power of the Slave States, by exhibiting their exports as 
contrasted with those of the Free ? And when we can demon- 
strate, as we did lately, that the aggregate production of the 
largest of the Slave States is not equal to its annual expenses of 
living by $14,000,000 per annum ? This one fact exhibits the 
wastefulness, weakness, and poverty inherent in the system of 
slavery in a more striking light than volumes of theoretical illus- 
tration. It shows, too, why it is that commercial capital does 
not accumulate in the South as it has done in the older Free 
States, and why a never-ending succession of bankruptcies seem 
always necessary to extinguish the indebtedness which the South 
is constantly incurring at the North. It shows why it is that 
the banks of the South are so long in showing recuperative 
power after their suspension. If Virginia is any evidence, and 
even Maryland any evidence, of the working of the system of 
slave labor, none of the Slave States are paying the expenses of 
their own living. They do not support themselves, they do not 



402 A BANKRUPT SOUTH. [March 

pay their own way, but live, to a greater or less extent, accord- 
ing to situation and circumstances, off the industry of the rest of 
the country. In fact, the slavery of the South is a positive pe- 
cuniary burden upon the Free States — an absolute tax upon the 
free labor of the country. 

Testimony to the same effect, showing the ruinous character 
of slave labor, was rendered in the case of the British West In- 
dies at the time of emancipation. It was there found that all 
the estates were eaten up by mortgages that had accumulated 
upon them under the slave-labor system. The $100,000,000 
paid by the English government went mostly into the pockets of 
mortgagees residing in the United Kingdom, who had advanced 
money to defray the expenses of maintaining a very small white 
population in the islands. We think a rigid investigation would 
show that the decline of material prosperity in the British West 
Indies under the slave-labor system was as great as that in Vir- 
ginia. The difference in the two cases is that Virginia makes 
up her deficiencies by selling off her increase of slave stock, 
while the West Indies funded their annual deficiency in the form 
of regularly increasing mortgages, which were finally sponged out 
by the gratuity of $100,000,000 appropriated by the govern- 
ment. 

Upon the features of Governor Hammond's speech, which 
oppose and insult the idea of a democratic government, we make 
no special comment. They are the ordinary ideas of the slave- 
holding oligarchy that now heads and leads what is facetiously 
termed the "Democratic party" in the North. They are the 
sentiments of all aristocracies, and simply assert the old propo- 
sition that the few were made to rule, and the many to be gov- 
erned. In this country that "few" are the slave-holders, and 
the " many " are the blinded masses of the foreign-born popu- 
lation, with a sprinkling of the native in the Free States. They 
are led by the cry of "Democratic" to the support of such 
"Democracy" as Governor Hammond's, which plumply de- 
clares that the white laborers of the Free States are no better 
than the negroes of the South. 

Neither do we stop to criticise the governor's absurdities 
about the South having saved the solvency of the country in the 
late crisis, by handing over its cotton to be sold for the relief of 



1858] LETTER FROM I. WASHBURN, JR. 403 

Northern banks and merchants. But we will ask him if the 
South has sent any of its cotton anywhere, whether it has not 
got its pay for it in advance ? Has it done any thing with it but 
pay debts to Northern banks and Northern merchants ? Is the 
governor stupid, or does he fly balloons merely for the pleasure 
of seeing them punctured and collapse ? 



[From Hon. I. Washburn, Jr.] 

Washington, March 16, 1858. 

My Dear Pike : I think they are distributing sorghum in small 
quantities at the Patent Office. Do you want some ? 

I think the Tribune must be hard up for cause against Seward when 
it relies on such specifications as are contained in your article — it seems 
it was yours — yesterday. Laurence Sterne has said somewhere that 
when it is determined that a victim shall be offered up, a fagot is never 
wanting ; but in this case, as old Antoine Lachance, of said, it was 

a ' ' d — poor stub. ' ' 

By the way, is it true, as an inside rumor here has it, that the 
Tribune is in for Douglas for President ? I am willing he should be 
any thing else, but this would be up-hill travelling just now for our 
Republican masses worse than the Beddington hills. Because one can 
get a new mail route to Schoodic, it don't follow that he can do any 
thing he has a mind to. The Tribune, too, is mortal. I am for Seward 
in 1860, ain't you ? 

I do believe that old Wade's speech was just about the best that 
was ever made. Of argument, hard hits, and wholesome abuse that 
left nothing to be desired, it was full — express and admirable. 

In my opinion the Lecompton bill ought to be kilied. It is right 
that it should be, and therefore, in my philosophy, it is expedient. As 
it ought to be killed, there is no weapon, scimeter or handspike, that 
we should not use. Time and the chapter of accidents may help the 
friends of freedom. The next best thing to defeating the bill is its 
passage only after the longest, hardest, honestest fight that can be made. 

I am glad you have our friend Foster in hand ; no man is more true. 

Wasn't Benjamin's reference to Tennyson unfortunate ? A volume 
of Tennyson, printed and published by Moxon or Longman, would, I 
take it, be respected as property in New York ; and but for the local 
law of England he would have no right even there to sell his songs. Is 
the right to the sale of one's inspirations a higher law right, or one 



404 SENATOR BENJAMIN. [March 

depending on local legislation ? When God gives a great intellect to 
one of his children it is for the benefit of all of them. When a divine 
tale is told, all who have ears may hear it. I never heard that old 
Homer sold his Iliad, or that the Saviour of men claimed a copyright on 
the Sermon on the Mount. In these imperfect times, when Tribunes 
abuse Sewards, no doubt it is well to give copyrights to their inspira- 
tions ; but when the Christian bells shall have " rung in the Christ that 
is to be," these things will be done away. But if one has a divine right 
to his works, Fred Douglass, a slave, would, in Benjamin's view, have 
a claim to his writings that he would not to himself. 
When are you coming here ? 

Yours truly, I. Washburn, Jr. 

J. S. Pike, Esq. 



JXTDAH BENJAMIN. 

[From the Mic York Tribune of March 20, 1858.] 

Mr. Benjamin, the Jewish senator from Louisiana, whom 
Senator Wade, of Ohio, wittily described as an " Israelite with 
Egyptian principles," lately made an able and ingenious argu- 
ment to show that slavery in this country is the creature of the 
common law. The legal gentlemen on the slavery side have 
always been in great straits to find a legal or constitutional basis 
for their institution in the Territories. The last effort in tins 
line is that of Senator Benjamin, who must have the credit, to 
say the least, of novelty in his exposition. Since the slavery 
men have finally concluded to put aside all minor scruples and 
take the bull by the horns, by declaring without rhyme or rea- 
son that the Federal Constitution, proprio vigore, carries sla- 
very into the Territories, it seemed hardly worth while for Sen- 
ator Benjamin to exhaust his energies and his ingenuity on the 
new theory he has put forth. But the fact is that among good 
lawyers the dogma that the Constitution extends slavery into the 
Territories is very hard to accept. It is a doctrine which, when 
first broached in the very desperation of the slavery party, was 
ridiculed and scouted by such men as Webster and Clay, who 
were supposed to have some correct perceptions of constitutional 
interpretation, and was met by the uniform denial of all sound 
legal minds. Mr. Benjamin is unquestionably an able lawyer, 



1858] BENJAMIN PETTIFOGGING. 405 

and lie has shared the opinions of his class. But, apparently 
determined to come to the same result with his less scrupulous 
confederates, and feeling that slavery must be proved to exist in 
the Territories by some process, he has betaken himself upon a 
voyage of discovery ; he has spurred up his inventive faculties 
to their highest activity in the search of a groundwork for his 
predetermined faith. 

Setting aside, therefore, the current dogma of the slavery 
extensionists, that slavery exists in all the Territories by virtue of 
the force of the Federal Constitution, Mr. Benjamin proceeds to 
show that it is there by force of the common law. To establish 
this bold and novel proposition, Mr. Benjamin resorts to the 
British history of African slavery. Of course it is incumbent 
on him to show that slaves were recognized as property in Eng- 
land. First, he adduces the fact that Queen Elizabeth granted a 
charter to a company formed for the purpose of supplying slaves 
to the Spanish- American colonies. Next, he alleges that the Vir- 
gin Queen was herself a slave-holder. Again, he shows that in 
1662, in Charles II. 's reign, a company was created with authority 
to carry three thousand slaves per annum to the colonies, which 
company long nourished under royal auspices. In 1695 the 
British House of Commons resolved that all the subjects of 
Great Britain should have liberty to trade to Africa for negroes. 
In the reign of William III. an act was passed stating that the 
slave-trade was beneficial to the kingdom and the colonies. In 
1708 the Commons again resolved that the slave-trade was im- 
portant and ought to be free to all British subjects. In 1711 
they again resolved substantially the same thing. In 1719 they 
resolved the slave-trade to be advantageous and necessary to the 
colonies. In 1775 the Secretary of State declared that the 
government could not permit the colonies to put a stop to the 
slave-trade. Besides, shortly after the treaty of Utrecht, in 
1713, the British Council called upon the twelve judges of the 
realm to give judgment as to the legal character of certain slaves 
exported under one of the Parliamentary charters from Africa to 
the Spanish- American colonies. Ten of them answered as fol- 
lows : " We do humbly certify our opinion to be, that negroes 
are merchandise." The question of property in slaves being 
further mooted about this time, some merchants of London sub- 



406 LORD MANSFIELD'S DECISION. [March 

mitted the query whether they were so to the Solicitor and At- 
torney-General of the kingdom. They answered that " a slave 
coining from the West Indies to England doth not become free, 
but may be legally compelled to return to the plantations. ' ' 
Subsequently, in 1749, the same question came before the Lord 
Chancellor, who had been the aforementioned Attorney -General, 
and he affirmed his previous opinion. 

This narrative gives in full the ground upon which Senator 
Benjamin places his deduction that slavery was the common law 
of the thirteen colonies and the mother country, and that it rests 
upon that foundation in this country now, and the equivalent 
law of France and Spain, wherever it has not been abolished by 
special statute. This argument, we learn, was received at the 
time of its delivery with great favor, and is considered at Wash- 
ington by the slavery men as a signal instance of triumphant 
legal acumen. 

In the year 1771 Lord Mansfield gave his celebrated decision 
in the Somerset case, which has always been understood, before 
Mr. Benjamin's time, as settling what the common law was in 
regard to slavery. That distinguished judge declared that sla- 
very was not the common law of England, and this was the first 
judicial decision ever made on the point, and it has never been 
reversed since. Mr. Benjamin offers nothing whatever to con- 
trovert this fact beyond what we have faithfully narrated above, 
and the query naturally arises how Mr. Benjamin gets over it. 
He is reported in the official journal as follows: " I say that in 
1771 Lord Mansfield subverted the common law of England in 
the Somerset case." The groundwork of Mr. Benjamin's de- 
claration is to be found in the record we have given. He 
claims that that record shows that slavery was the common law, 
and that Lord Mansfield failed to recognize the fact, or recog- 
nizing it denied it, and so " subverted " the law. Thus it will 
be seen that the only difference between Mr. Benjamin and the 
rest of the world on this particular and fundamental point is, 
that mankind in general have believed that Lord Mansfield de- 
clared and established the common law on this question, while 
Mr. Benjamin holds that he subverted it. 

Mr. Benjamin is here in a very curious position. He is seek- 
ing by investigation to discover what the common law of Eng- 



1858] A REACTIONARY MOVEMENT. 407 

land is on a given point. Now we have always supposed that 
the highest judicial decisions determined the common law, as 
indeed, all law. In the particular case which is taxing Mr. 
Benjamin's ingenuity he comes across a judicial decision of the 
highest character on the point in question. It is the first de- 
cision made. It has never been reversed since. It is received 
without reserve throughout the vast empire in which that de- 
cision is still the rule. Yet our Louisiana senator claims that 
the law thus declared and thus held is not law. The true law, 
according to his authority, is the law that was never declared to 
be law by judicial decision, the law that was denied to be the 
law by the only court of competent jurisdiction eighty-seven 
years ago, and has been so held ever since. 

This doctrine of Mr. Benjamin, if it fails in its purpose, is 
yet of useful import. It discloses a sense of dissatisfaction in 
the legal mind of the South with the present position of the 
courts upon the slavery question. Mr. Benjamin cannot swal- 
low the monstrous dogmas of the time touching the spread of 
slavery by the agency of the Federal Constitution, and he seeks 
a way of escape as desperate as that we have depicted. 

We refer to this speech not for itself, but as a feature in the 
present reactionary or reflux movement in this country on the 
constitutional status of slavery. It is one of the drifting miscs 
that have been accumulating about our political fabric. In the 
Revolutionary era, and for seventy years succeeding, our politi- 
cal and constitutional system stood before the world in distinct 
outlines. The charter of our independence declared all men to 
be free and equal. The formation and interpretation of the 
Constitution rested upon this broad and unequivocal asseveration. 
Slavery was the exceptional fact of our institutions, doomed to 
death by the ideas on which the government was founded. 
Theoretically, our system was consistent and harmonious. Our 
legislation and our jurisprudence conformed thereto. Slavery 
was forbidden in the Territories. The Federal Constitution was 
considered by the courts to exclude slavery entirely from its 
sphere, in no manner recognizing it. The institution was left 
to the supports of positive enactment in the communities that 
still preserved it. Every thing was clear, well defined, and con- 
sistent, in theory at least, and all pointed to gradual change and 



408 WILL THE REACTION STAND ? [March 

gradual improvement. Such was the condition of things before 
the new era dawned. The slavery men of the South united to 
overturn it, and they have done so. Now the doctrines of the 
Declaration are denied and ridiculed. All men are not born 
free and equal is the modern theory. Congress has not the 
power to restrict the spread of slavery. The Constitution recog- 
nizes slaves as property. Slavery exists under the common law 
wheresoever it has not been abolished by special statute, and no 
power but State sovereignty is competent to the enactment of 
such a statute. The Federal Constitution is not in the interest 
. of general freedom, but of general slavery. The reactionary 
movements stand at this point. As Mr. Bocock, of Virginia, 
declared in his late speech in the House, it is the greatest and 
most pregnant revolution of our political history. "We may add, 
it is the most shameful. 

Will that reaction stand ? It will not. No reaction and no 
advance can be stationary. The law of existence is the law of 
movement. The war of ideas is as rife to-day as ever. The 
question is entirely open as between the old interpretation and 
the new. The one is the symbol of the advance movement ; 
the other is the symbol of a retrograde action. The latter is 
now in favor, with all its looped and windowed raggedness. It 
is the broad target for attack. It cannot shield itself and it can- 
not long resist its assailants. Mr. Benjamin is doing his duty to 
slavery as one of the Todtlebens of the defence. But the new 
Sevastopol of slavery must fall. lie defends, but he cannot 
sustain the great and most criminal agent in this revolution. 
The court of the United States is guilty. It cannot be dis- 
guised. Posterity will so pronounce. It has belied the Declara- 
tion of Independence. It has subverted the jurisprudence of 
the country uniformly administered for seventy years. It has 
condemned the sentiments, judgments, and actions of the found- 
ers of the Republic and the framers of the Constitution and their 
successors during our whole national existence. It has ex- 
tinguished the lofty lights of interpretation fixed by them in de- 
claring this to be a government for freedom and not for slavery. 
For this bitter record, for this unholy conduct, the court is ex- 
tolled by Senator Benjamin. That commendation will not stand 
the test of history. It will crumble and perish along with the 
patched-up ruins it is intended to adorn. 



1858] LETTER FROM I. WASHBURN, JR. 409 

[From Hon. Israel Washburn, Jr.] 

Washington, March 20, 1858. 

Dear Pike : Excuse me. I was mistaken in saying there was sor- 
ghum at the Patent Office. There is not, as I learnt upon inquiry there 
to-day. 

The Tribune's suggestions for offering damaging amendments to the 
Lecompton bill are good ; but in the event, now not unlikely, that every 
man who can be induced to vote against the P. G. , in order that an 
opportunity may be had for offering amendments, would vote against 
the bill, it may be deemed wise to meet the question at once upon a 
square vote ; for in this business of amendments there are two sides, 
and the Lecomptonites, if they fear they are in a minority, may propose 
amendments themselves to plague our tender-footed, and may be carry 
them off, you perceive. But we ought to be certain that we can beat 
before we venture a direct vote. 

Your ticket for President and Vice-President is a grand one, and 
will be particularly acceptable to Trumbull. How is James ? 

I approve of your remarks in reference to Wade, and as we — 
W. and I — agree about Seward's speech, there need be no more con- 
troversy between us. Your success in President-making in 1852 gives 
you rights that I would be the last to question, especially when you are 
with Truman. Couldn't you make those pictures of Scott useful ? 

Some profane rascal has been abusing our friend Foster in the 
' ' lying Argus. ' ' I wish you would ' ' edit' ' that correspondent a 
grain. Foster's speech was listened to respectfully, and was, I take it, 
a, good speech, and the district which did not elect you is not to be 
made faces at. 

Yours most sincerely, I. Washburn, Jr. 

J. S. Pike, Esq. 



[From Fitz-Henry Warren.] 

BunxiNGTON, Iowa, March 20, 1858. 
Dear James : I see by my date that this is a day of equal length, 
which is about the only equality we get now. I have your letter of 
loth. I have just laid down your paper of the 14th in which there is a 
complimentary notice of Mr. Toombs, which I detect as yours by the 
unmistakable ear-marks. It is a vara pretty piece of denunciation, and 
lakes rank along with certain charcoal sketches of our anti-Lecompton 
leader. Suppose Toombs should be our candidate in '60, would the 
statute of limitations run against mustard-poultice application ? If it 



410 FITZ-HENRY WARREN— B. F. WADE. [March 

will not, I shall regret it, mainly on account of our foreign diplomacy, 
which is sadly in need of reform. 

But my main purpose in writing was to suggest to you to come out 
here early in May, and take a run up the Mississippi River, as high as 
St. Paul and the Falls. There are many objects of interest, including 
the Fort Snelling reservation and Cheever and Cushing's big saw-mill. 
Gushing runs his saw at tide-water. You have sniffed the salt sea 
breeze and smelt the bilge- water of a fishing smack ; now penetrate 
into the bowels of the land and widen your scope of geography. I will 
go along with you. My wife has a flitch of bacon, and I have a resi- 
duary bottle of the " Vidonia" brand. What say you ? 

Why will Greeley persist in going to that tadpole State of Indiana 
to give his agricultural addresses ? We tried to get him out here, but 
he would not come. I suppose it is because one half of our State is 
not under water and the rest a peat-bog. 

I suppose your printer has asphyxiated. I sent you a letter some 
two weeks ago which has never shone in the columns of the Tribune. 
When I have evidence of his death I will stop throwing my pearls 
before swine, and send his widow a deed to a dozen corner lots. 

I am summoned to dinner. 

Yours truly, Fitz-Henry Warren. 



[From Senator B. F. Wade.] 

Washington, March 21, 1858. 
My Dear Pike : I received yours of the 10th, inst., in time to have 
used your article in my speech, but the result was so astounding that 
I dared not make use of it without a careful comparison of your items 
with the census. I have done so, and find them all correct ; and truly 
there has been nothing touched in the whole concern of the anti- 
slavery investigation so damaging to the " peculiar institution" as your 
disclosure. I intend to make use of it the first chance I get. A.s it 
was, I gave them all the hits that occurred to me for the time being, 
and, as John the Evangelist would say, I poured out several vials of 
wrath on to the seat of the beast, which caused not a little squirming. 
It looks just now as though the Lecomptonites would be defeated in the 
House, and I have no doubt they would should the vote be taken now. 
How it may be three weeks hence no one can tell. 

Truly yours, B. F. Wade. 



1858] LETTER FROM COUNT GUROWSKI. 411 

[From Count Gurowski.] 

Thursday, 4 o'clock, mg., March, [1852]. 
Pikus Magnus : As I aim at perfection! ng your judgment on his- 
tory, so I read the article about Marc Antony which enraptured you so 
much. I am sorry to say that it can not stand the touch of criticism. 
I do not speak of facts, but of judgment of them, of the stronger and 
appreciative. It is brilliant, superficial, and false. In your further 
studies be on your guard against those brilliant antitheses, against which 
protest sound knowledge of history, sound criticism, and philosophy. 
To me facts are perverted for the sake of effect, as that about the speech 
after the murder of Caesar. But the worst of all is the comparison with 
Mirabeau : ridiculous ! Antony deserted his caste to serve Caesar or 
divide a part of power over enslaved fatherland ; Mirabeau deserted to 
emancipate those who were socially enthralled, to create free millions. 
Antony wished for supreme, absolute power ; Mirabeau, to be the 
premier of a cabinet in a constitutional monarchy. Antony fought 
bravely battles ; Mirabeau, duels only. The dissolute life of Mirabeau 
consisted in making suppers with courtesans in an age and society when 
everybody did the same without offending public morals or public 
opinion ; Antony can be said found a savage pleasure in offending 
the hitherto sternly preserved chastity of the domestic hearth of the 
Romans. The like elucidations could be carried further on. I hope 
what is said above is sufficient to justify the ground taken by me. 
Antony was both greater scoundrel and warrior than Mirabeau. 
Events made that Mirabeau stand in history as the godfather of liberty 
for a whole epoch and world ; Antony, as the murderer and entomber 
of free institutions of his country, as the godfather of lawlessness and 
of the despotism of one. Gurowski. 



[From William Pitt Fessenden.] 

Washington, April 8, 1858. 

My Dear Pike : I send you a copy of speech. Did the same 
thing weeks ago, directed to you at Tribune office. Direct this one to 
New York generally. 

A very foolish article, so far as my speech was concerned, arising 
from a misapprehension of the telegraphic report, appeared some time 
since in the Missouri Democrat, charging Seward and myself with 
avowing a want of interest in the struggles of our friends in the Slave 
States. The article was copied into the Tribune, and public attention 
called to it by a column of editorial approving and indorsing its stric- 



412 LETTER FROM WM. PITT FESSENDEN. [April 

tures. It was quite manifest that the writer had never read my speech, 
or else that he wilfully perverted it. In either case the article mani- 
fested a very unfriendly feeling, either by condemning without exami- 
nation, or by wilful perversion. There is nothing in the speech which 
is not entirely consonant with the Philadelphia platform. Dr. Bailey 
copied the speech, and spoke of it in terms of high commendation. 
Mr. Brown, of the Democrat, has, in correspondence, acknowledged 
his error, and promised to make matters right. Whether he has done 
so or not I am unable to say. 

I do not write this for the purpose of having any thing said about it 
in the Tribune, as the article did me no harm at home, and it is unwise 
to call attention to such matters. But I wish to say to you, confident 
tially, that it is quite generally thought here, among our friends, that 
the Tribune takes a pleasure in finding fault with them, and calling public 
attention to their real or supposed errors. In my judgment it is not 
wise to diminish the standing and influence of those who are striving in 
the same cause, unless duty to the public absolutely requires it. Nor 
does it look well for a leading paper to seek a reputation for indepen- 
dence at the expense of its friends and fellow-laborers. 

Of course you will understand that I say this to you as a personal 
friend, and only for your private consideration. 

The great battle comes off to-day in the House. I trust it will be 
successful, and it is believed that the antis of all stripes are firm. 

When do you go down East ? Family troubles prevented me from 
carrying out my design of last year. I have hopes of accomplishing it 
before this year is out. 

Your friend truly, W. P. Fessenden. 



DEATH OF BENTON. 
[From the New York Tribune of April, 12 1858.] 

In the death of Mr. Benton the country loses one of its 
marked public characters. He was a man of great force, but 
that force was of a personal rather than of an intellectual nature. 
An intense individuality characterized all that lie said and did. 
His frame was large, his health robust, his nature burly. He 
was truculent, energetic, intrepid, wilful, and indomitable. He 
always wore a resolute and determined air, and, simply viewed 
as an animal, possessed a very commanding aspect. He strode 
into public life with these qualities all prominent and bristling. 



1858] DEATH OF THOMAS H. BENTON. 413 

Whenever he shone he shone in the exhibition of them. His 
intellectual powers always appeared as subsidiary ; they never 
took the lead, never appeared to be the propelling force in any 
of the marked epochs of his life. The leading points of his 
career were his land-reform measure ; his opposition to the old 
United States Bank ; his expunging resolution ; his war on Mr. 
Calhoun after his disappointment in the succession to the Presi- 
dency ; and his hostility to the compromise measures of 1850. 
In all these contests, at least in all but that for the reform of the 
land system, he bore himself as a fighting man. He carried this 
so far as to allude, in one of his later senatorial exhibitions, to a 
pair of pistols, which he said had never been used but a funeral 
had followed. 

Mr. Benton had been ten years in the Senate beiore he was 
known to the country as a prominent debater. The discussion 
on the United States Bank question brought him out fully, and 
was of a character to exhibit his powers to the greatest possible 
advantage. It was a question that touched the feelings and the 
private interests of individuals deeply, and roused the intensest 
ardor of all partisan politicians. The debates were heated and 
fiercely personal. A hand-to-hand political encounter over- 
spread the country. This contest suited Benton exactly. He 
loved the turmoil and the war, and he rose with each successive 
exigency until he became, par excellence, the champion of General 
Jackson's Administration in its contest with the Bank. On one 
occasion, in 1830-1, he made a speech of. four days. At the 
close of the fourth day Mr. Calhoun sarcastically remarked that 
Mr. Benton had taken one day longer in his assault on the Bank 
than it had taken to accomplish the revolution in France. 

The intellectual strength of Mr. Benton's efforts never im- 
pressed his great adversaries, Clay, Calhoun, and Webster. They 
never regarded him as belonging to their class intellectually. 
Yet they always appreciated and dreaded his great personal 
force. In no case did this peculiar Bentonian ability manifest 
itself more clearly or more offensively than in the passage of the 
expunging resolution. General Jackson had been censured by 
the Senate in a resolution drawn by Mr. Clay for acting ' ' in 
derogation of the Constitution. ' ' Mr. Benton set about to re- 
move the censure by expunging it from the records. He has 



414 HIS POLITICAL CAREER. [April 

told how he accomplished this in his "Thirty Years' View." 
The story is fairly told and illustrates the man perfectly. The 
whole transaction bears the marks of a haughty, domineering, and 
repulsive spirit. The reader, as he peruses Mr. Benton's ac- 
count of it, feels the triumph to be of a coarse and vulgar char- 
acter, the work of ill-temper and passion, with not a single flash 
of intellectual or moral elevation in the whole proceeding. 

In his political career Mr. Benton often showed himself a 
fierce and malignant, but never, we think, a generous adversary. 
It is said that on his deathbed he has done full justice to Mr. 
Clay in finishing his abridgment of the debates of 1850, and it is 
pleasant to hear it. We do not doubt that his temper was molli- 
fied in his later years, as he found himself rapidly approaching 
the termination of his life. In that debate he came directly in 
collision with Mr. Clay, and was the only man, indeed, who 
offered or was able to offer any thing like real practical resist- 
ance to the impetuous and overbearing march of that great par- 
liamentary leader. In the great debate of 1850 in the Senate, 
Mr. Clay crushed at will all effective opposition but that of Mr. 
Benton. On that occasion Benton did not, however, furnish the 
brains of the debate any more than on previous occasions. Mr. 
Seward and others of the opposition had clone that much more 
strikingly. But in parliamentary tactics, in the exhibition of 
personal intrepidity, and in individuality and manner — which in 
every legislative contest are important elements — Mr. Benton 
rose superior to every ally. His temper was roused, and he hurled 
wrath and defiance at his enemies. On a question of parliament- 
ary law he came in immediate conflict with Mr. Clay, who had 
the majority of the Senate with him and was determined to carry 
his point. Mr. Benton met him with equal resolution, and with 
a bull-dog ferocity that caused his antagonist to recede and yield 
the point from considerations of expediency. Mr. Benton was 
allowed his way after hours of violent struggle and a night's de- 
liberation of the majority. It was, to a very great extent, a tri- 
umph of his fighting qualities. Foote, of Mississippi, entered 
very largely into that debate, and persisted in dogging and at- 
tacking Benton. Benton at last bade him stop, he would bear 
no more of his insults. Foote continued in the same strain. 
Benton rose from his seat and strode directly toward Foote, as 



1858] HIS PECULIAR CHARACTERISTICS. 415 

if to throttle him on the spot. Foote fled, and Benton was 
checked ; but Foote never referred to Benton afterward in the 
Senate. On another occasion Mr. Benton laid himself out to 
attack Mr. Calhoun. He did it with ability, but his bad blood, 
his ill-temper, his violence of manner and gross personalities were 
the predominant characteristics of the attack. There was no 
pleasure to be derived from it merely as an intellectual demon- 
stration. On the contrary, it only impressed the hearer as re- 
pulsive and disgusting. 

In all these examples we see where Mr. Benton's power lay 
as a parliamentarian, a debater, and a man. He never carried his 
point by winning or convincing, or by pure mental effort. He 
never reached his objects nor accomplished his successes by 
mere force of oratory or intellect. He never impressed his audi- 
ence or the public by sheer strength of mind. It was his in- 
tense individuality and animal force, acting upon an intellect of 
common scope and character that gave him all his triumphs. 
His industry was great and his memory remarkable. His knowl- 
edge was large, but it was in the domain of facts. He never 
rose to the consideration of scientific principles, and perhaps 
never even to the commoner field of philosophic generalization. 
For himself he claimed to be a man of " measures," rather than 
of principles or ideas. We should further qualify this claim by 
saying he was chiefly a man of ' ' facts. ' ' His ideas of currency 
and the "gold" refonn, which occupied him for many years, 
were very crude ; and so far as we know were never improved by 
after-study or reflection. They found expression in the existing 
Sub-Treasury system. Another favorite measure of his was a 
road to the Pacific, across the Continent. His services in 
establishing the pre-emption system in the disposition of the pub- 
lic lands were conspicuous, and their results have been eminently 
beneficent, but we think the record of his principal " measures" 
must stop here. 

Mr. Benton's mental activity being confined to an inferior 
plane of action, however busy and industrious, however constant 
and indomitable he might be, the very nature of his efforts pre- 
vented him from accomplishing much intellectually. We look 
in vain in the writings or speeches of such a man for any of the 
electric influences and inspirations which minds of a nobler mould 



416 HIS PRIVATE LIFE. [April 

often unconsciously impart. He never spoke the word which 
touched the nation's heart. He himself thought he would make 
a good military commander, and perhaps he was right. Of his 
personal peculiarities his egotism was the most striking. It was 
a source of entertainment to his visitors ; his own apparent un- 
consciousness of this peculiarity, or his sublime conviction of its 
pre-eminent propriety in his own case, giving a zest to its often- 
times extravagant manifestations. 

Of his private life and domestic relations it gives us pleasure 
to speak in language of unqualified admiration. He was a de- 
voted husband, and his fond and considerate attentions to an in- 
valid wife in her declining years offered a spectacle honorable to 
humanity. He was the preceptor of his children, whom he 
taught with the same industry and assiduity that he always man- 
ifested in whatever he undertook. They were Bentonian in their 
ways, however, and did not all please him in the choice of their 
mates ; but we believe they all at last had his entire approbation, 
the most repugnant of the matches to the paternal care, we be- 
lieve, being the marriage of his daughter to the late Republican 
candidate for the Presidency. 

Mr. Benton's moral character as a public man is also deserv- 
ing of very high praise. In his public acts we believe he always 
followed the dictates of an honest purpose. He did not legislate 
for popularity nor for pay, nor for any individual advantage in 
any way. He advocated and opposed public measures on the 
ground of what he considered to be their merits. His judgments 
may have- been clouded by passion or partisan feeling, as no 
doubt at times they were, but we believe he was always true to 
his convictions. Of venality and corruption in legislation he 
had an instinctive abhorrence, and during the thirty years of his 
senatorial life we do not think the perfect integrity of his votes 
on all subjects, whether of a public or private character, was 
ever impugned. In this respect his example is worthy of the 
attention of all our rising public men, who, in these budding years 
of corruption, are likely to be tested by severer temptations than 
the statesmen of the past. Whatever else is unattainable in re- 
putation to a legislator, the proud distinction of integrity is be- 
yond no man's reach, and it is a virtue that is not likely to lose 
any of its lustre by being too common. 



1858] LETTERS, W. H. SEWARD AND DR. BAILEY. 417 

[From William H Seward.] 

Washington, April 15, 1858. 

My Dear Pike : I discern by your note that you are in New York, 
and so I beg to spear at you. 

A few days ago the Tribune had a very generous article containing 
courteous notices of the debates on the Lecompton bill. I hear on all 
sides of me very grateful expressions about this article, and confessions 
that the praise was discriminating. 

But one Republican senator was forgotten. He is as true a man a& 
any other, more modest, and abler than many. He made a good 
speech, I think a great one. I mean Mr. Harlan, of Iowa. 

The article praised Douglas justly. But it forgot, I think, to speak 
of Stuart and Broderick. Both did exceedingly well, and their moral 
influence, especially Broderick's, is prodigious. Would it be advisable 
for me to suggest to you to have a few generous words for them ? 

When are you coming here ? Why don't you come ? How do 
you expect we are to get along without you ? What do you mean ? 
What are you about ? How is Mrs. Pike ? Do you think the inter- 
rogation a proper form of argument ? 

Faithfully yours, William H. Seward. 

J. S. Pike, Esq. 



[From Owen Lovejoy.] 

House op Representatives, April 20, 1858. 
My Dear Sir : Yours of 16th is received. Hope to have the 
pleasure of seeing you here sometime. It looks now as though English 
would strand our ship. My hope is in the people. 

Yours truly, Owen Lovejoy. 



(From Dr. Bailey, Editor National Era.'] 

Washington, D.C., April 23, 1858. 
My Dear Friend : Night before last we returned from our Western 
trip. Mr. Clapham told me that he obeyed your order, and sent you 
a copy of that Era to New York, care of the Tribune office. Yesterday 
I directed him to send you another copy to Avondale. If you do not 
get it, let me know, and tell me, too, where I shall have the Era sent 
to you henceforth. I do not expect to be able to edify you, but it will 
serve to remind you and Lizzie of two persons in Washington who 



418 LETTER FROM SALMON P. CHASE. [May 

consider that they have been maltreated by you. Hang Calais ! Let 
it go to the mischief. Don't you see that the republic is in danger ? 
Can't you sacrifice a little for your country's good ? The Lecompton 
deviltry on the eve of a triumph, and you thinking of nothing but your 
truck-patch in Calais ! 

Come, now, you are close by ; two or three hours would bring you 
here. If we had not been to the West, we should go to Avondale ; so 
there is nothing left but for you and Lizzie to come to C Street. As for 
my being well, it is not the fact. I have really been an invalid since 
last July — my head the only well part, I believe. 

Out West we sojourned with the Piatts — full of fun, frolic, and 
wit as ever. Corwin we spent two or three evenings with, and Tom 
was great — brilliant, cynical, genial. Chase, at Columbus, inquired 
after you and Lizzie ; he holds you both in high esteem. The Governor 
grows fat on the cares of State. Shall we make him or Seward Presi- 
dent ? Or who shall it be ? Have you made up your mind to wait 
till 1864 ? I am uneasy. Perhaps by the time the Republicans gain 
their first presidential victory, I may startle you with a series of " table- 
tippings" in that venerable old mansion at Calais. 

Good-by. Sincerely yours, G. Bailey. 

J. S. Pike, Esq. 



[From Count Gurowski.] 

April 28, 1858. 

Dear Yankee : Do not leave the city for the season without seeing 
me, should it be only for a few minutes. Do not be afraid. I have 
no particular business, but wish to shake hands for a rather protracted 
time with one who behaved as a friend when I was much scarred right 
and left. Gurowski. 



[From Salmon P. Chase.] 

Columbus, May 12, 1858. 
My Dear Sir : In the Tribune of the 12th there is an article in 
relation to interference of East with West, which in many respects seems 
to me fair and just, but which contains an allusion which I would like 
to have explained, to " a secret coalition between certain Republican 
leaders and the little faction, etc., who, for the sake, etc., pretend to 
approve the Lecompton fraud, and are now hounding on the track of 
Senator Douglas." As some correspondent of the Times was weak 



1858] MR. CHASE'S LETTER. 419 

enough to believe, or wicked enough to invent, the story that Mr. 
Buchanan had a letter of mine approving of the Leconipton bill, which 
statement was very extensively copied, it occurred to me on reading the 
foregoing extract that some allusion might be intended to me as one of 
the Republican leaders coalescing with the Lecomptonites against Doug- 
las ; and as I am sure you are a personal friend, I thought I would 
write you and ascertain the truth. Nothing could possibly be further 
from the truth than the assertion that I ever by word or deed intimated 
the slightest disposition to consent to the Lecompton iniquity. Re- 
sistance to it by all means not dishonorable, and to the last extremity, 
was ever my counsel to all who thought it worth asking for. I even 
counselled against the contingent consent proposed by the Crittenden 
amendment, and would never, had I been in Congress, have voted for 
that proposed by the Montgomery amendment, except as the only means 
left of defeating the direct consent to the Lecompton bill. Regarding 
it as the only means left, I should have acted just as our friends in the 
House acted, whose votes, under the circumstances, for that amendment 
I have constantly approved and still approve. If the Lecompton bill 
had passed, it would have been expedient, in my judgment, for the new 
State members and officers elected under the Lecompton Constitution on 
the 4th of January to take possession of the government, and, abstaining 
from all other action, call forthwith a convention to form a new consti- 
tution and organize forthwith as a Free State under that. Happily, the 
practical defeat of the Lecompton bill did not make it necessary to 
determine the practical question of adopting or rejecting this line of 
policy. Such, in brief, are my positions, and I think them impregnably 
sound. 

As to coalescing for any purpose with the Lecomptonites who are 
*' hounding on the track of Senator Douglas, " if any allusion is in- 
tended to me, or any Republicans whose action is known to me, it is 
certainly groundless. Confidence with me is not a plant of swift 
growth, and before I indulge in any extravagant laudations of a man I 
want to know not merely what his action has been in a prior contin- 
gency, but upon what principles he acted and what guarantees these 
will afford of his future action. That Douglas acted boldly, decidedly, 
effectively, I agree. That he has acted in consistency with his own prin- 
ciple of majority-sovereignty I also freely admit. For his resistance to 
the Lecompton bill as a gross violation of his principle, and to the Eng- 
lish bill, for the same reason, he has my earnest thanks. I cannot 
forget, however, that he has steadily avowed his equal readiness to vote 
for the admission of Kansas as a Slave or a Free State, in accordance with 



420 LETTER FROM DR. BAILEY. [May 

the will of the majority of the voters ; that he has constantly declared 
his acquiescence in the Dred Scott decision, which makes slave territory 
of all national territory, leaving to freedom only a partial and precarious 
possession of Free States ; and that he indorses and maintains the plat- 
form lately adopted in Illinois, which is diametrically opposed to the 
declaration hitherto made by Republican conventions, State or national. 
If holding these sentiments in regard to the position of Mr. D. is 
coalescing with Lecomptonites, I am guilty, and mean to continue 
guilty. Otherwise, I repeat, the allusion, if any be intended, to me, or 
those who agree with me, is groundless. I cannot believe, however, 
that any was intended. 

I am very certain that the great masses of the Republican party 
ao-ree with me in determination to maintain Republican principles with- 
out compromise, welcoming cordwlly all aid, whether temporary or 
permanent, grateful to all aiders who act on real principle, whether our 
own or others, but firmly resolved not to leave our own to stand on 
foreign ground. We shall not adopt the notion that all that is necessary 
to make slavery a good thing is the consent of the majority of the 
voters ; nor, in our judgment, can any party command or deserve the 
confidence of the country which does. " There is a way that seemeth 
right unto a man, but the end thereof is death. ' ' There is a road that 
seemeth to lead to success, but the end thereof is defeat. 

Excuse me for writing you at this length, and pardon me for a little 
sensitiveness to allusions, which were probably not at all intended for me. 
Write me soon explaining what the Tribune really means. From what 
1 have heard from the office, I have supposed that none but kind feel- 
ings towards myself were entertained ; and it will give me great satis- 
faction to have your assurance that this information was correct, and that 
those feelings have undergone no change. 

I hoped to hear from Mrs. Pike and yourself in reply to my last. 
Why have you not written ? With best regards to her, and cordial 
remembrances of both, I am, 

Ever sincerely your friend, S. P. Chase. 



[From Editor National Era.] 

Washington, D. C, May 23, 1858. 

My Dear Friend : I want you to write to Dana of the Tribune, 

and request him to let our friend Donn Piatt alone. Every now and 

then comes out an editorial about our diplomacy, the bad character of 

our agents, how they won't pay their debts, and all that, and covert 



1858] LETTER FROM N. P. TRIST. 421 

allusions are made to Piatt. This is unfair. It were well for the repu- 
tation of the country if there were no bigger sinners than our Cincinnati 
friend. He did become embarrassed, but he has been honestly trying 
to redeem himself ever since. Besides, the principal cause of his em- 
barrassments was being obliged to act as minister so long on the 
small salary of a Secretary of Legation. The position was forced upon 
him, and he vacated it as soon as he could. For the same service his 
predecessor, Sanford, was allowed $7000. Piatt, because his wife was 
cleverer than Mrs. Moran, and because he fell into disgrace with our 
slave-holding corps of diplomats, was cut down to $2300. Dana 
ought to remember these things ; nor should he forget the exertions of 
Piatt and his wife for Greeley in Clichy, and generous attention always 
to his countrymen while abroad. Do stop these cruel attacks. 

Darby and Joan, I suppose, are well. How is the yacht ? Of 
course you are enveloped in fogs and rains. I doubt whether you have 
seen the sun for forty days. Possibly you may have just opened the 
window of your ark, and let out your dove on a voyage of discovery, in 
quest of some dry land. When I was up your way, it was easy enough 
to find any thing but that article. 

Truly yours, G. Bailey. 



[From Nicholas P. Trist.] 

Philadelphia, June 22, 1858. 
J. S. Pike, Esq. 

My Dear Sir : The present agitation of the " Protectorate" 
scheme has suggested to me that the moment is an opportune one for 
obtaining attention to my plan of " protecting" those unhappy Spanish- 
American peoples from the villainy of " claims," and at the same time 
of protecting ourselves from becoming the perpetrators of the iniquity 
of subjecting those peoples to desolating wars founded upon that vil- 
lainy. I will ask the favor of you, therefore, to return to me by the 
express the papers I placed in your hands when I had the pleasure of 
making your personal acquaintance here. Please put into the bundle, 
also, the printed volume of extracts from a Congressional document. 

The Baltimore paper containing that piece under the signature of a 
Kentuckian, copied from the Louisville Journal, which I wrote to you 
about, was unfortunately lost in the office of the editor into whose hands 
I had placed it in the hope of its being republished here. It started 
with the proposal of an amendment to the Constitution forbiddino- all 
further acquisition of territory, and it had throughout the rino- of what 



422 LETTER FROM HORACE GREELEY. [July 

was regarded as true metal in the days of what was then called ' ' Jeffer- 
sonian Democracy." The tone of your note on this subject gave me 
great satisfaction. Some years back, in tbe hope that it might do good 
there, I placed in the hands of Mr. Sinclair, for the Tribune office, a 
thin octavo volume, bound, " Madison's Report," etc., which I studied 
very closely, some thirty-five to forty years ago, as my first step in 
American political science. I had previously read Aristotle, etc., etc. 
If you will read Randall's Jefferson from beginning to end you will not, 
I think, regard it as time wasted. 

Should I put forth any thing (it will be the first time in my life that 
I have done any thing of the kind, any thing calculated to attract public 
attention to myself — and I am now not far from sixty), I will send you 
the paper. Should you deem it worth making use of, please send me 
one of your papers containing the notice of it. The Tribune was, for 
many years, the only paper I took, and I have ceased to take that, my 
circumstances requiring my expenses to be reduced to the lowest point 
possible. 

With very respectful regard and friendly wishes, 

Yours truly, N. P. Trist. 

[Note. — Mr. Trist was the gentleman who negotiated the treaty with 
Mexico under Mr. Polk.] 



[From Horace Greeley.] 

New York, July 7, 1858. 

Pike : I agree with you entirely about Mr. Branch's speech. But 
I was away last week, and Dana sent up Doesticks to caricature and 
ridicule the convention as much as possible ; so he reported every thing 
which seemed calculated to render it odious, and slurred over every 
thing else. I think this was alike unjust and unwise. 

I hope you are going to slaughter most of your present delegation. 
Maine is not strongly represented — weakly in the House, and barely 
respectable in the Senate. If you have any better timber, send it along. 

We shall have all sorts of an election in this State, and may win 
handsomely, but I am not so sure that we will. Personal intrigue and 
selfish aspiration are likely to spoil every thing. I only mean to make 
sure that Haskin shall be returned, and, if possible, H. F. Clark also. 
John Cochrane can be beaten if the right man is run against him. 

I think the Tribune is getting to be an old Hunker concern. I shall 
stop taking it soon, if it don't evince a little more reformatory spirit. 

Yours, Horace Greeley. 

J. S. Pike, Calais, Maine. 



1858] LETTER FROM COUNT GUROWSKI. 423 

[From Count Gurowski.] 

Brattleboro', Vermont, August 19, 1858. 

My Dear Yankee : After having cleansed my body for four weeks 
in Saratoga, I intended to take advantage of your friendship and start 
for the great Yankee region. But old age poking impertinently at my 
ribs, in the shape of rheumatism and lumbago, took me by the hand 
and dragged me here, to fight it out at the water-cure. How long ? I 
do not know ; neither does the doctor, as the fighting of the intrusive 
and obtrusive old gentleman requires every year more time. 

I suppose that, true to your Yankee general character, you got as 
excited as the rest of the great population of the g-r-e-a-t country about 
the Atlantic Telegraph. Have you nominated Cyrus Field for the next 
President ? Have you kissed each other in the streets and con- 
gratulated right and left ? Have you sang hosanna and peace to all 
nations ? In one word, have you made fools of yourselves to a sufficient 
degree ? To be sure, the laying of the cable to that extent is a triumph 
of mechanical skill and a proof of energy and stubbornness. But the 
hifalutin about the Henrys, Morses, Fields, is one more evidence of the 
familiarity with the history of the progress of science in general, and of 
that of electricity in particular. I am sorry to find that electricity was 
not discovered even by Franklin, but by a certain bearded gentleman 
living about two thousand three hundred years ago in a certain city 
called Miletus, in Asiatic Grecia. And then the galvanic battery, the 
voltaic pile, Oerstedt's discovery of fusion of magnetism and electricity, 
or magneto-electricity, down to Henry or Morse, who only combined 
and applied the above discoveries. And then the laying of cables in 
the Mediterranean and Black seas. Not that I disparage what is now 
done, but for the present I do not see any other results, but only the 
increased facility for large cotton and flour merchants to become more 
wealthy, and tread down the poorer. But if the cable will not imme- 
diately influence the higher social condition of nations, at any rate it will 
soon produce a reform in the trade, and such a reform will generate others. 
Buchanan's answer to Victoria was foolish. He speaks of neutrality of 
the two points, when in a few years we shall have several such cables 
and points. I rejoice beforehand to read the stupendous blunders which 
the papers will commit and spread over the country in commenting upon 
the daily news received in short despatches from Europe. We shall 
see what skill and knowledge they will unfold. 

I am busy, first, keeping up the correspondences for the journals in 
Moscow and Warsaw, then in writing of a French book to be published 
in Paris concerning Poland and the policy of Nicholas towards it. I 



■424 LETTERS, I. WASHBURN, JR., AND MR. FESSENDEN [Aug. 

defend the old gentleman and myself, as that policy was my suggestion, 
and therefore the hook will likewise be a kind of my personal memoirs, 
or autobiography. 

The third volume of Cyclopaedia is out. If it is not better (and it 
cannot be) than the two former, I am decided to break down the whole 
concern. The people ought to be warned and preserved from such a 
heap of stupendous ignorance and bad faith, scientifically. It could be 
published in Rome by the Jesuits. 

My hearty compliments to Mrs. P. 

Yours with whole heart, Gurowski. 



[From Hon. I. Washburn, Jr.] 

Orono, August 30, 1858. 
My Dear Sir : We hear that all is right in Hancock, but that there 
is surprising apathy in Washington. A gentleman who has just come 
from that county says that in many of the towns literally nothing is 
being done, and Republicans are saying, " Bradbury is a smart man 
and will be elected ; it is no use trying to defeat him." I have no 
doubt you can get Henry Wilson to speak all next week in the district 
if you want him. He told me in July that he would come into Maine 
if he should be wanted. 

I shall be in Hancock all this week after to-day. I think you should 
have Hamlin next week. 

Yours truly, I. Washburn, Jr. 

J. S. Pike, Esq., Calais, Me. 



[From William Pitt Fessenden.] 

Portland, August 30, 1858. 

My Dear Pike : If the Sixth District depends on the doubtful 
voters, and those who can pay for them will have them, we are beaten, 
for the Democrats can spend three dollars to our one. Hence, if your 
figures are reliable, and include Hancock, the matter is past hope, and 
we may as well save what little money we can raise to pay expenses, 
getting home our voters in this district. As yet we have reserved noth- 
ing for ourselves, and the contest here is to be a hard and close one. 
. . . Your letter has been sent to Stevens for his opinion as to whether 
it is advisable to make any further effort. On your statement it does 
not look so to me. 

Yours very truly, W. P. Fessenden. 

J. S. Pike, Esq. 



1858] LETTERS, C. A. DANA AND HENRY WILSON. 425 

[Prom William Pitt Fessenden.] 

Portland, September 5, 1858. 

Mr Dear Pike : Stevens has undoubtedly written you, as he re- 
turned from B. on Friday, and was in some degree successful. I had a 
letter from a friend at Albany, to whom I wrote, saying that it was too 
late to effect much, but he would write you at once. 

Gunnison writes me that with a little care the Pembroke, Robbinston, 
Eastport, and Lubec districts may be secured. I trust all will be done 
that can be, as we do not look so safe in this region as I could wish. 
We learn that our adversaries are making a rush upon all the close 
Republican districts in this quarter, and have some hopes of checkmat- 
ing us in the House. 

It rejoices me to see that your hopes of the Sixth are rising. Our 
friends in Hancock speak bravely. 

Yours always, W. P. F. 



[From Charles A. Dana.] 

New York, September 6, 1858. 

My Dear Pike : Print your speech ? Yes, sir ! of course. In 
fact, if we are sure to do any thing, it is to print your speeches. In- 
deed, we carry it so far that we have sometimes printed those that you 
only meant to make. This one will go in within two or three days, 
with a first-rate notice from one of the ablest pens in the country. 

Horace has gone to Indiana to deliver his agricultural address, and 
also to be absent when he is nominated for Governor, or isn't. I stay 
away from the convention for the same reason. The Horatian move- 
ment is strong, though both he and I have carefully kept aloof from it. 

Have you received the Household Book of Poetry ? It was sent ten 
days ago. 

Give my love to Mrs J. S. P., whom I esteem to be the best of 
women. Yours ever, C. A. D. 



[From Senator Wilson.] 

Natick, September 16, 1858. 
J. S. Pike, Esq. . 

Dear Sir : I congratulate you on the vote of your district, and 

especially of your county of Washington. Foster owes his election to 

you. Bradbury must feel that you have wiped him out. I only wish 



426 LETTER FROM WM. PITT FESSENDEN. [Sept. 

you or your brother Fred were chosen. Either of you would be of 
service in the next great fight. I fear Foster will be able to do but 
little. I spoke in seven towns in your county, and I never saw such 
workers as I saw in your county. I left it with high hopes ; but when 
I got to Bangor I saw that little had been done out of the First and 
Sixth Districts ; that we were in danger in the Third. I hope French is 
elected, but I fear he is not. Our friends in that district deserve the 
lash for their conduct, and French personally deserves defeat. 

I am reading Mrs. F. A. Pike's new book, and I am most deeply 
interested in it. Give my regards to your wife ; also to your brother 
and his wife. 

Yours truly, H. Wilson. 



[From Mr. Fessenden.] 

Portland, September 16, 1858. 

My Dear Pike : I congratulate you. All honor to the county of 
Washington in general, and "J. S. P." in particular. Bion must 
feel decidedly used up. 

Give us credit, too, for the fight in No. One. We contended under 
every possible disadvantage. The Navy-yard at Kittery, the new forti- 
fication in our harbor, the naturalization of Irishmen, and a bad family 
quarrel all told heavily against us. I suppose that Bion would have 
had more votes in Aroostook if he had supposed they would be needed. 

I trust we have carried the Third, though the doubt is mortifying. 
A " live man" could not have been beaten there. 

I hope to see you before I go to Washington. In the mean time, 
with regards to Mrs. Pike, I remain, 

Always yours, W. P. Fessenden. 

J. S. Pike, Esq. 



[From Hon. Thomas Corwin.] 

Lebanon, O. , September 24, 1858. 
Dear Sir : After two days of pain enough to kill a buffalo, I have 
just relief enough to read with sincere joy your Machias speech. As 
it was postmarked at Calais, I take it for granted I am indebted to your 
personal kindness for it. It bears the marks of great reflection and 
mature thought. I think I comprehend its entire scope, with only one 
exception. What limitation you propose to the jurisdiction of the 
Supreme Court, or rather how you propose to accomplish this object, I 



1858] LETTER FROM THOMAS COR WIN. 437 

do not so well understand. Let me know what yOu mean by this, and 
how it can be done. 

I have very unwisely dashed again into the arena of politics, and for 
about four weeks been speaking thirty-six hours in every twenty-four. 
I thought about two months ago Ohio was going over rapidly to Demo- 
cracy. Four years ago we had a majority of sixty thousand, last year 
we had fifteen hundred. I sought to bring the old Fillmore men to 
their senses. I have succeeded. But in this work I was compelled to 
be a candidate. I wait to see what Ohio will do. If there is hope of 
saving her, I shall (if elected) take my seat, but sub rosa. If no such 
hope is indulged, I think I shall not. Can you tell, can anybody tell, 
why the opposition did not unite in New York ? In Ohio there will 
not be one hundred Americans, or Fillmore Whigs, as they here prefer 
to be named, who will not vote the entire Republican ticket. Oh ! that 
ineradicable curse of partisan selfishness ! I fear no party in New York 
is exempt from it. Fools ! fools ! fools ! It will destroy them all. 
I have been working in Campbell's, Nichols's, and Case's districts, all 
hotly contested, all doubtful. I think we shall retain Nichols and oust 
Cox and Vallandingham. We shall beat Burns and Miller, I think. I 
have spent some time in the latter districts, and they, I hope, will be 
carried. 

My son has handed me this moment the stupid apology of an assin- 
ine editor for not reporting me truly. I have glanced at his pretended 
report. It is full of the most provoking and ridiculous misstatements of 
principles as well as arguments. I go to-morrow (if alive then) to 
speak each dav and night for two weeks. I shall carry a revolver, and 
he dies who comes on the stand with pen and ink. Instead of the 
speech, I send the apology. 

Yours truly, Thos. Corwin. 

J. S. Pike. 



[From Senator Fessenden.] 

Portland, September 26, 1858. 

My Dear Pike : I saw the Governor last week, before receiving 
yours, and he asked my advice on the point you mention. I advised 
him to do as you desired. The result, however, may dispense with the 
necessity, as Foster's election is not now disputed. 

I received a letter from Bigelow of the Evening Post a day or two 
since, asking for the details of our plan of organization, and expressing 
the opinion that, if adopted in New York, it might save the State to 



428 LETTERS FROM GOVERNOR MORRILL. [Oct. 

Republicanism. In reply, I have referred him to you, and expressed 
the hope that your counsels would be followed. Perhaps you had better 
post him up on the subject. I told him that our great secret was unity 
of action, thinking nothing of men or cliques, and working for suc- 
cess. 

I shall be glad to find you and Mrs. Pike established in Washington 
for the winter. 

Yours, as always, W. P. Fessenden. 

J. S. Pike, Esq. 



[From Governor Morrill.] 

Augusta, October 2, 1858. 

My Dear Sir : "Will you take an appointment to examine into the 
subject-matter of the alleged frauds in the plantations in Aroostook 
county at the late election ? I very much desire it. If you are dis- 
posed to, the necessary papers will be provided as soon as we can have 
access to the lists to be returned within thirty days after election. If 
you prefer, you can have a gentleman joined with you. Mr. Hall will 
confer with you, and if he has no desire to accompany you, will 
advise as to some proper person. 

If you please, advise me by telegraph. 

With much respect, Yours, Lot M. Morrill. 

Jas. S. Pike, Esq., Calais. 



[From Governor Morrill.] 

Augusta, October 11, 1858. 

My Dear Sir : I have persuaded Mr. Smith to meet you at Bangor 
and explain whatever may need explanation, and to take papers which 
may be useful you should see, and which cannot be trusted to public 
conveyance. 

As for specific authority, beyond inquiry into the record and returns, 
whatever may be supposed to exist in the executive is incidental to 
the powers given to count and declare the votes. I have given you 
specifically power to examine into the correspondence between the 
records and returns, and under general language leave to your discretion 
the rest. 

I do not intend to limit the inquiry ; but the commission is, or may 



1858] LETTER FROM E. L. HAMLIN. 429 

be, a public one, and in terms should not be questionable in its 
authority. 

Mr. Smith will explain all. 

With esteem, yours, L. M. Morrill. 

J. S. Pike, Esq. 



[From Hon. Elijah L. Hamlin.] 

Bangor, November 10, 1858. 

My Dear Sir : I have received your memorandum of the weather 
during your expedition to the Aroostook, and herewith I send you my 
account. 

My thermometer hung upon the outside of my brick house, and not 
far from the door, and possibly it might range one or two degrees 
higher than in a more exposed situation. The difference is more than 
I expected ; the country is really colder in Aroostook than in Penobscot. 

You have done a good thing in your investigation among the 
French voters, and I hope we shall have a detailed account of these 
villainous frauds. It is time for some legislative action in the premises. 
Truly yours, E. L. Hamlin. 

J. S. Pike, Esq., Calais. 



430 LETTER FROM HON. AMOS N0UR8E. [Jan. 



1859. 



[From Hon. Amos NourseJ 

Bath, January 25, 1859. 
J. S. Pike, Esq. 

My Dear Sir : I have just been reading a part of one of your letters 
(all that was within my reach), and I cannot forbear to tender you a 
vote of thanks. You will readily understand what letter I refer to — 
that in which you scout the idea of abating a jot of principle for the 
sake of picking up a few votes here and there. The truth is, our 
strength lies in our principles, and only in our principles. If faithful to 
them, we shall prevail ; if otherwise, defeat will be but our righteous 
doom. 

The position which Douglas has stooped to take will, I trust, save us 
from all danger of entanglement with him ; but where is Forney here- 
after to be found ? Nobody that I have conferred with is able to 
answer me that question, and I doubt if he can himself. But it is a 
most interesting question notwithstanding. 

How nice it would be if I had now, as a couple of years ago, a 
chance to drop in upon you every now and then, and talk over these 
matters ! But, alas ! there will never be another fragment of a sena- 
torial term small enough for me to fill. The delightful talks I used to 
have with yourself, and your sensible, genial lady, are never, I fear, to 
be repeated. But we shall have the pleasure, I trust, of feeling that 
we are co-workers in the same good cause. Tell Mrs. P., if you please, 
that if she will get her friend Governor Chase fairly on the presidential 
track, I will write for him, speak for him, and work for him with all 
my might and main ; which is more than I would undertake to do for 
Mrs. Judge McL. or her husband. And tell her, too, that I should 
like mighty well to know whether she writes as well as she talks ; and, 
to that end she will oblige me exceedingly by sending me her autograph 
in the shape of an epistle. 



1859] LETTER FROM CHARLES A. DANA. 431 

I had the good fortune last winter to make the acquaintance of 
another Mrs. P. — the veritable "Ida May," a most interesting, agree- 
able, and accomplished lady. Hope I shall have the pleasure to see 
more of her. Her husband, let me say, as well as she, has already 
established a most enviable reputation. The promise of a brilliant 
future is before him ; but it is sad to think how often, from one cause 
and another, do such promises fail to be realized. 

Please drop me a line, if you are not too busy, with a postscript, if 
no more, from her ladyship. 

Yours very truly, A. Nourse. 



[Prom Charles A. Dana.] 

New York, February 4, 1859. 

My Dear Pike : My wife and I are so charmed with your descrip- 
tion of your felicity in Washington, and above all with your invitation, 
that if we could only get away from the cares of housekeeping at home 
we should be there before to-morrow night. 

It is time for the Tribune to be looking out for a telegraphic corre- 
spondent at Washington. Carter's engagement expires on the 4th prox., 
and we must have some one in his place. My conviction is that there 
is nobody so good as ... on the whole. He is dear, but that is not 
the worst of faults. Horace likes him as he does calomel and jalap, but 
that, too, can be got over if necessary. I wish you would tell me what 
is your judgment on the subject, and whether there is any new man 
who is worth trying. 

The subscriptions to the Tribune look wonderfully well. We are 
getting immensely strong in Pennsylvania, and before 1860 shall have 
over thirty thousand subscribers in that single State. At least that is 
my opinion from the way it is going now. I see nothing to prevent our 
having the weekly up to 250,000 before 1860. 

Would you take hold of the duty of publishing the Tribune aftei 
next July ? Salary $2500. 

Love to your wife, and tell her Henry James is coming here before 
a great while to give a course of five or six lectures on Shadows, involv- 
ing not only ghosts and goblins, but pretty much all the universe 
besides. Yours faithfully, C. A. Dana. 



V 



432 JUDAH BENJAMIN. [Feb. 

[From Charles A. Dana.] 

New York, February 11, 1859. 

My Dear Pike : I dare say you feel better by this time. 

I agree with you that ... is one of the greatest fools in the world. 
But Greeley insists on having him ; and Colfax, who is a special friend 
of Greeley's, never ceases urging Horace to give him a chance. That's 
the secret of his engagement, which, I am happy to say, is only to the 
end of the session. 

As for the Napier letter, that was written by a distinguished gentle- 
man ; and when Horace learned who it was he said he agreed perfectly 
with you about it. 

I inclose the lee-scupper article. I think it is great, and Horace 
never has done praising it. It was written by George F. Talbot, of 
East Machias. Yours faithfully, C. A. D. 



BENJAMIN ON SLAVERY. 

[From the New York Tribune ] 

Washington, February 11, 1859. 

Mr. Benjamin made a speech to-day in the Senate on Cuba, 
which opens the discussion of the slavery question in all its as- 
pects and relations. He boldly threw down the glove challeng- 
ing admiration for slavery and the slave system, and making the 
most offensive comparisons between slavery and freedom. 

No man could talk as he did who believed in any God but 
the almighty dollar. Yet Judah is a gentleman, a scholar, a 
man of capacity, and a practised talker. Alas, too, he is a law- 
yer, and is as used to talking on the wrong side as the right. 
But what a disgusting aggregation of cupidity and rapacity would 
the world exhibit, if everybody looked upon the great ends of 
life and humanity to be what Benjamin's argument assumed 
them to be ! Yet Judah did not seem to appreciate this peculiar 
and most striking weakness of his discourse. He seemed to for- 
get that the world had a moral sense, or humanity any rights. 

Mr. Benjamin having boldly called attention to the evils of 
freedom, the awful condition of the people living in tropical 
regions outside the beatitudes of the slave system, and having 
read varied and lengthy extracts in aid of this view, he has pro- 
voked a like detailed examination of the svstem he so much ex- 



1859] HIS GOLD-BLOODED SPEECH. 433 

tols. It is the duty of the Republicans of the Senate to take up 
the gauntlet he has thrown down, and re-read to him and to the 
Senate what slavery is in the tropics, what it is to the slave and 
what it is to the freeman, what it is to the colored man and what 
it is to the white. Mr Benjamin's provocative cannot be with- 
stood. The story of slavery must be told in its length and its 
breadth to the same pleased and admiring crowd of slave-holders 
who listened with so much gratification to-day as Mr. Benjamin 
recited tales, that, though naturally productive of no emotions 
but indignation and horror, were yet received with a general 
chuckle of delight by the slave-holders, on no other ground that 
could be perceived than because the horrors of slavery were 
rivalled by Coolie abominations. 

"As the devil travelled through Coldbath fields, 
He saw a solitary cell ; 
And the devil smiled, for it gave him a hint 
For improving the prisons of hell." 

The inevitable inference and logical conclusion of Mr. Ben- 
jamin was that no other form of labor should exist within the 
tropics, everywhere, all. over the world, East Indies and West 
Indies, than compulsory labor. The necessities of civilized 
man demanded slavery ; slavery in the Southern States and sla- 
very in Brazils and in Cuba ; slavery in Jamaica, slavery in all the 
islands of the Caribbean Sea. For Mr. Benjamin declared, and 
essayed laboriously to show, that compulsory labor was alone ad- 
equate to provide for the wants of civilized man. 

But who shall be forced to work for civilized man ? Mr. 
Benjamin says the African. Who shall decide who shall be the 
compelled and who the compeller ? Is it not time for the slave- 
holder of the tropical regions himself to be set to work as a pro- 
ducer. Has he not lived long enough off the labor of others to 
take his turn at his splendid system of compulsory labor ? Off 
jackets, Messrs. Benjamin & Company, and take to the cotton- 
field ! And how is it with that vast class, that wretched mass of 
degraded humanity, the "poor whites" of the South? The 
doctrine of " compulsion" is as good for them as for the blacks. 
Why not? And where is the line to be drawn on the earth's 
surface between voluntary and compulsory labor ? Who is to run 
that Mason's and Dixon's line ? If the Southern slave-holders 



434 REMARKABLE SPEECH OF SENATOR THOMPSON. [Feb. 

are to establish it, it must be by consent of other men south of 
the St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes. 

Mr. Benjamin's whole speech was simply and plainly an 
open advocacy of the right of the strongest. This was his cen- 
tral idea. This odious and insulting dogma was proclaimed by 
him in open day, on the floor of the United States Senate, to the 
manifest delight of the whole Southern slave-holding aristocracy, 
and with an apparent forgetf illness upon their part of the fact that 
we have a free government, that rests on a declaration of the 
rights of man. Let the issue here involved be met. Met by 
freedom and the Free States. Met by the millions of the North. 
These gentlemen rush upon their fate. They steadily force on 
the great conflict of ideas, regardless of results. Who, then, 
shall hold back ? Shall it be the genuine Democracy of the Free 
States ? Certainly not. They welcome the conflict. 

J. S. P. 



AN EXTRAORDINARY SPEECH. 
[From the Neiv York Tribune.'] 

Washington, February 17, 1859. 

The Cuba debate went on yesterday in a speech of Senator 
Thompson, of Kentucky, against Slidell's corruption project. 
The speech was very able, full of sharp points, and immensely 
entertaining. The Senate was full and the galleries crowded. 
The entire audience were often convulsed with laughter, and the 
Vice-President at last grew too weak to rap any but the most 
gentle admonitions. Indeed, it was about the only occasion I 
ever witnessed in the Senate in which the attempt to preserve 
order was abandoned. The fun got to be so universal and up- 
roarious that it was idle to attempt to stop it. 

Although Senator Thompson's name is not one of the popu- 
lar celebrities of Congress, he is no new man, but has been in 
one branch or the other, " oif and on," as he himself expressed 
it to-day, for twenty years. He is not a rising man nor a grow- 
ing man, for he described himself in debate the other day as a 
" political corpse ;" immediately adding by way of relief to his 
sympathizing friends, that he saw several gentlemen around him 
"in equally bad health." Mr. Thompson is an old Whig, and 



1859] GENERAL GLEE. 435 

just now belongs to no existing political organization. One of 
his most enthusiastic moments to-day was where he alluded to 
Henry Clay as Coeur de Lion, and himself as one of his field 
marshals. 

"What Mr. Thompson said I shall not undertake to recall or 
to repeat, even in brief. To measure its effect, the matter of 
the speech is not alone sufficient, even if presented in the full 
verbatim report of the Globe. To give a true idea of it needs 
the time, the audience, the circumstances, the appearance of the 
speaker, with his apparently shattered constitution, his feeble 
frame, his entire concentration on his subject, his imperturbable 
gravity, his evident sincerity, his nervous susceptibility, his ec- 
centric ways, his intense anxiety of expression, his restrained but 
effective gesticulation, and finally his sitting posture, in which 
from weakness, he delivered all but the first fifteen minutes of 
his speech. 

Around the speaker sat senators of every name and degree. 
There was Pugh who laughed till the tears ran down his cheeks. 
There was Gwin, brawny and broad, who shook himself entirely 
out of all remembrance of all railroad projects. Close by and 
directly in front sat Douglas, who with his head bent upon his 
breast, seemed in danger of choking as he convulsively bobbed it 
up and down upon his chest. There was Mason, the imperson- 
ation of the Virginia idea of senatorial propriety, sitting first in 
front, and then moving over to one side, and then standing in 
the rear, but wherever he went intent on listening, and actively 
participating in the general glee. There was Father Simmons, 
of Rhode Island, sitting close by, from beginning to end, a per- 
fect convert to Free Trade — in laughter. There was Mr. Seward, 
not having the due restraints of a grave senator upon him, some- 
times to be seen in a convulsed, sometimes in an exploded state 
of hilarity. There, too, was his colleague, Preston King, whose 
fat sides never stopped shaking. There loomed Hale, with his 
face constantly lighted up with a sort of glorified merriment. 
There was that soberest and gravest of ancient senators and ven- 
erable men, Mr. Allen, of Rhode Island ; a man who never 
speaks and never smiles, eagerly listening and constantly laugh- 
ing, looking first this way and then that, to see if it could be 
possible that he was justified in such an unwonted exhibition of 



436 JOHN BULL AND LORD NAPIER. [Feb. 

exuberant nature. There was the Speaker's colleague, the vet- 
eran Crittenden, gradually sinking under the inexorable humors 
of his friend and admirer, until, in apparent despair of being able 
to hold out himself, he suggested that his colleague should give 
way for an adjournment — a suggestion gratefully recognized, but 
not acceded to, on the ground, apparently, that the audience 
ought to be able to hold out as long as the speaker in his present • 
infirm condition. Clingman refused to go away, and laughed 
to the end, generously helping the speaker with an apt correction 
of a i ' free love ' ' allusion, as a good bachelor should. Governor 
Hammond took a seat in the immediate vicinity of Mr. Thomp- 
son at the start, and resolutely clung to it to the end, not miss- 
ing a single good thing nor failing to enjoy it. General Hous- 
ton stuck by equally close, swallowing the entire dose. Directly 
by the speaker sat Reverdy Johnson, wholly unable to restrain 
himself, and laughing as though he would split. The detail 
might be pursued. Suffice it to add that in addition to the dis- 
tinguished gentlemen referred to, there sat nearly all the rest of 
the senators in a similar condition of broad cachinnation. Bring- 
ing up the rear in close order was Lord Napier, who began to 
listen with his coat on and hat in hand. Directly he sat. Then 
he removed his overcoat, and next he put down his hat. For 
the rest, he went in with the crowd and became an unconditional 
partner in the general merriment, taking most philosophically 
the awful delineations of John Bull, the "bloody old bruiser," 
and the palpable hits at the dinner-giving tactics of her diplo- 
matists at Washington. Another live Lord on one of the sofas 
did not take the sketch so graciously. 

While this speech of Mr. Thompson's did not treat the sub- 
ject from the Republican point of view, it is entirely too full of 
good things to be neglected. It is a good speech to circulate, 
for it contains much sound doctrine in an attractive form. 

Mr. Chandler, of Michigan, follows to-day in a financial view 
of the question. But Cuba is a humbug, and meant for nothing 
else. J. S. P. 



1859] SENATOR COLLAMEB ON CUBA. 437 

SENATOR COLLAMEE ON CUBA. 
[From the Keus York Tribune.] 

Washington, February 21, 1859. 

Mr. Collamer delivered a very able speech to-day of over 
three hours against the acquisition of Cuba. As an argument it 
was like all Mr. Collamer's efforts, of great force and complete- 
ness. He bore down directly upon the merits of the measure, 
grappling with it in close quarters, and levelling it stone by stone, 
to its foundations. He made clean work in a most lawyerly 
and judicial manner. He argued fairly and squarely without 
pettifogging, talking like an upright man and an intelligent 
statesman, and endeavoring to convince and not to delude or 
befog the understanding of his hearers. Jefferson Davis inter- 
rupted him once, but got brushed away. Jefferson mistakes 
passion for sharpness, and temper for intellect. He always as- 
sumes a dictatorial air in his criticisms and this makes him offen- 
sive. 

There are a large" number of speeches to follow Mr. Colla- 
mer's on this subject, and though Mr. Slidell gave notice to-day 
that he would drive the question to a vote to-morrow night, I 
doubt if it will be done. I do not see how even the prepared 
speeches can be crowded into the limited time proposed to bo 
allowed, without talking all night ; and this the Republican Sen- 
ators will not probably consent to. Of course they cannot be 
forced into any thing unreasonable. The failure of the attempt 
to coerce them on Lecompton last session is too fresh in the re- 
collection of gentlemen on the other side to lend weight to the 
supposition that they will repeat the effort. The minority will 
insist upon a reasonable time to deliver their speeches, and they 
will get it. 

Benjamin's proposition to invest the President with imperial 
power is dead. It was badly scorched in the debate the other 
day, and went to the table. It may be called up at any time, 
but seeing the temper of the Senate, Mr. Benjamin has wisely 
abandoned it. He says he shall not touch it again at this session. 
Mr. Collamer undertook to demonstrate to-day that it was part 
and parcel of the Cuba scheme, as I have before suggested. The 
State Bights men of the South were evidently afraid of the pre- 



438 FOLLY OF DEMOCRATLC LEADERS. [Feb. 

cedent, although favoring the object aimed at. Again, " The cat 
loves fish, but dares not wet her feet." 

It looks now as though the failure of this project would have 
an important bearing upon the designs of the thirty million men. 
They want to get both sword and purse into their hands. If 
they could succeed, their fillibustering folly might involve the 
country in a scrape which would require an extra session to pro- 
vide the means for a general war. The managing politicians at 
the head of the government are really in such straits, politically, 
that the public peace is in constant jeopardy, and the prosperity 
of our commercial interests hangs by a thread. Mr. Buchanan 
is sort of Cuba-crazy, and John Slidell, everybody knows, and 
Plaquemine attests, is one of the most reckless of men. As to 
the wisdom of our rulers, it is not worth while to say much 
about that. We have seen what havoc they committed on their 
own ranks by their insane project of repealing the Missouri Com- 
promise, in defiance of every dictate of political prudence. We 
have seen how madly Mr. Buchanan rushed to the support of 
the Lecompton Constitution last winter, and what a miserable 
minority of his own party it has left him in in the Free States, and 
how isolated his Administration stands here in Washington, with 
a majority in neither House. 

Judging of what we have thus seen of the unspeakable folly 
of the Democratic leaders, acting on subjects directly under their 
nose, and nowise difficult of treatment by men of prudence and 
discernment, what are we to expect of those same gentlemen in 
the present juncture ? They are blundering about in blind pur- 
suit of some fancied political advantage, and do not hesitate to 
handle the great questions of peace and war with the same 
temerity they have exhibited in treating subjects of mere do- 
mestic interest. They have done nothing but blunder hitherto — 
and are we to expect that they will do any thing but blunder 
hereafter ? The country may congratulate itself on its good for- 
tune if it gets the government out of their hands in season to 
avert some great national catastrophe. Never did any party ex- 
hibit greater incompetence in its leaders, than has the so-called 
Democratic organization of this country exhibited since the year 
1854. The country cannot be rid of them too soon. 

J. S. P. 



1859] LETTER FROM JAMES E. HARVEY. 439 

[From James E. Harvey.] 

Washington, March 7, 1859. 

Dear Pike : You slid off so quietly that I knew nothing of the 
exodus till it was all over. I had expected an opportunity to have 
talked some matters over, but they must be deferred. 

Dana wrote to me a few days ago in regard to resuming the place of 
" our own correspondent," and I replied frankly and fully. As you 
know something of the subject, perhaps it might be as well to confer with 
him. There are plenty of cheap chaps here, who, in my opinion, are 
a positive nuisance to any respectable paper. In the first place, they 
know nothing ; and in the second, they have no principle to guide their 
action. No man who does his whole duty properly, and has the neces- 
sary facilities, can afford to give his time and labor at the price these 
Bohemians do, who have degraded journalism and damaged the papers 
with which they have been connected. However, you know all about 
this, and I shall say no more. 

As ever, James E. Harvey. 



* [From William Pitt Fessenden.] 

Portland, May 1, 1859. 

My Dear Sir : I trust you will be present on the 17th, if you can, 
for you know those last year's accounts are to be looked over and 
settled, and a new system adopted. Come down, if you can. I am 
living quite solitary, having only one son with me, and no females but 
servants. Come to my house at once. I am about to have an opera- 
tion, and shall be confined to my house pretty much. You would be 
most welcome at any time, and particularly so just then. 

I have been thinking that the Arnold affair is not of much con- 
sequence. The man is living yet, for any thing I know to the contrary, 
and I should not, at any rate, wish his pride injured in the least for my 
benefit. He really, on the whole, behaved well at the time, considering 
the circumstances, and, as I came off best, of course I forgive him. 
Yours truly, W. P. Fessenden. 

J. S. Pike, Esq. 



[From William Pitt Fessenden.] 

Portland, May 8, 1859. 
My Dear Pike : I have a large house enough, and servants enough, 
and, provided, as I have no doubt she will, Mrs. Pike can make all 



440 LETTERS, MR. FESSENDEN AND GOV. MORRILL. [June 

proper allowances, and whether she can or not, I should he delighted to 
see hoth her and your daughter. At all events, I think she could do 
hetter here than at any hotel in town. That I said nothing about her 
in my former letter was owing, mainly, to the fact that her being with 
you did not occur to me at the moment. Please present her with my 
regards, and say that I shall esteem her coming with you a very par- 
ticular favor, and will allow her to be comfortable in her own way. 

I saw Peck in the street the other day, who told me that he knew 
nothing of any meeting of the State Committee, or any settlement of 
accounts 

What are the Tribune and Era quarrelling about ? They both aim at 
the same point, and mean to reach it in the same way. Are they put- 
ting on airs to " gull the flats" ? 

Sincerely, W. P. Fessenden. 

J. S. Pike, Esq. 

P. S. — Drop me a line as to-day and train, or telegraph. 



[From Governor Morrill.] 

June 21, 1859. 

My Dear Sir : . . . I fully agree with you that the negro ques- 
tion is quite likely to split the Democracy, or rather to render the split 
altogether irreparable. They must continue to break into discord as the 
question develops itself. Douglasism is the dangerous element to them 
now. It will give a temporary strength to a faction, sure to give out in 
the end, like any new makeweight. Therefore do not, I pray you, be 
too savage on it at your next convention. It is an indication that the 
leaders North are conscious that they must keep up a semblance of 
opposition to the doctrines they now are advancing, and to which they 
intend to submit, if they can only have time to get the rank and file 
prepared for it. I am by no means sure we should not desire the 
success of the " squatters" in their convention. It is the rankest 
treason to the Administration and to national Democracy, and is all to be 
repented of and atoned for ; but its success now will make the peni- 
tential goat all the more a means of grace to all that portion of the rank 
and file who are honest in their attachment to Democracy, and who 
think the Douglas leaders are honest in their present efforts. The 
impression here is, the Administration will have the convention at 
Bangor. 

It is feared hereabouts that vou have killed the Railroad bill. It is 



1859] LETTER FROM CHARLES A. DANA. 441 

said that the Presque Isle circular, under the imposing frank of an 
Hon. M. C, did great mischief in the western counties. 

It was not my purpose to be in complicity with the proposers of the 
coming convention, and so had not thought of being in attendance. 
I will, however, be in reach of you, if you advise me of any thing likely 
to take place to the detriment of our glorious party and country. 
I am, my dear sir, 

Very truly and sincerely yours, Lot M. Morrill. 

Jas. S. Pike, Esq., Calais. 



[Prom Charles A. Dana.] 

New York, June 23, 1859. 

Dear Pike : You are right about the political paragraph. That 
was just what I intended to do myself ; but here is this infernal war, 
which occupies every minute of the time, and works me pretty hard at 
that. However, the war is the absorbing subject, and the Presidency 
is only secondary. 

My impression is that we had better concentrate our forces on Chase, 
and that he is the only man we can beat S. with. The Fessenden 
movement is good, but it can't come to any thing directly. Indirectly 
it may be very useful. That is my notion. 

I have handed your letter over to old Rip, and if he takes notice of 
it, I desire to have it understood that I will not be second to either 
party. By the way, the Count has expressed a desire to be reconciled 
to me, and declares that he will not abuse the Cyclopaedia any more. 
On that motion I published his manifesto to the European press, and he 
sent an editorial, which duly appeared in the Tribune. The millennium 
is at hand. 

Yours, C. A. Dana. 



[From William Pitt Fessenden.] 

Portland, July 23, 1859. 

My Dear Pike : I received the proof, and sent it to Dana, making 
a few alterations by striking out one or two sentences. 

I saw Stevens's article. He or somebody else sent me the paper. 
The paragraph in the Tribune troubled him very much, as I learnt 
from other quarters. He was very much afraid it would injure me, 
considering it best that Maine should make a demonstration for S. in 
the first instance, etc., etc. Isn't he a sort of ostrich ? 



442 LETTERS FROM W. P. FESSENDEK [Aug. 

Whatever might have been the effect of your proposition, of one 
thing I am sure, that I could not have stood a whole session of Con- 
gress under such an embarrassment. This consideration decided me. 
It was a sacrifice I am not bound to make for the good of anybody, or 
everybody, under the circumstances. 

You will notice that your popular sovereignty resolution takes well, 
and is looked upon as expressing the true idea. I am more and more 
satisfied every day that the Irishman was right when he said that " the 
best way to avoid danger is to meet it plump." The people, espe- 
cially our people, are in a condition to receive the truth into willing 
minds, and I am for letting them have it on all occasions. 

Did you see Mr. Pangborn's article upon the Tribune paragraph ? 
I was at a loss to understand this at first, as Schouler expressed the hope 
that our convention would make a nomination. But I am told that the 
Bee is an organ of Governor Banks, and P. his particular mouthpiece. 
Is it so ? 

I am yet lounging about home, trying to get in better condition, 
but my success is not very flattering as yet ; but I am a patient man, 
and can wait. 
With much regard to Mrs. Pike, 

Your friend, truly, W. P. Fessenden. 

J. S. Pike, Esq. 

From William Pitt Feesenden.l 

Portland, August 17, 1859. 

My Dear Pike : The trouble is that the United States Courts its 
on the 23d of September, and there is one case which I must help. 
Then our Superior Court sits on the second Tuesday of October, and 
there is one case in a similar fix. If, with all these troubles, I can come 
subsequent to the 23d, I will ; but just now I cannot fix a day. I don't 
mean to lose the chance if I can help it. William is going to sea as 
soon as he can get a good place. If at home then, I will take him 
with me. I am assured it is just what we both want. 

I get no news, and am going off in a day or two somewhere, for a 
ten days' trip. Perhaps I shall contrive to see Foot before I come 
back. I hear from all quarters that Seward is losing ground, particu- 
larly in the West ; but perhaps " the wish is father to the thought." 
Yours as ever, W. P. Fessenden. 



1859] LETTERS FROM CHARLES A. DANA. 443 

[From Charles A. Dana.] 

New York, August 26, 1859. 

My Dear Pike : I send with this a clever statement by an Oregon 
man, which I propose to print as soon as you can examine it, and write 
an article to go with it. Of course you will look only to what is right 
and just in the premises ; but it might be well to remember that the 
course of the Tribune on this very question has hindered the progress 
of the Republicans in Oregon. I dare say that if we had put it to them 
less sharply Logan might now have had the certificate instead of Stout. 
However, that is all right ; and if it can't be helped, the work must be 
done again. Only let us be very sure and draw it as mild as practicable. 

I am very anxious about Hildreth. He has long been in delicate 
health, and now for a month nearly has been in Massachusetts doing 
nothing but nurse himself, though to no great purpose, for at the 
last news he was no better. He suffers from dyspepsia, I fancy, as 
much as any thing else, combined with a horrible nervous depression. 
I think one of his brothers had his mind overset under similar circum- 
stances. To lose H. would be a great calamity, not only from the 
loveliness of his character, but from his incomparable professional 
utility. You can fancy that his total absence has put me to my trumps, 
and to my work too. However, that is good for us. 

I wrote you a very hasty note yesterday on politics. Later in the 
afternoon I saw Ashley (M. C), of Toledo, travelling in Pennsylvania, 
New Jersey, and New York to look after Chase's interests. He's a 
good fellow and no fool. He swears that the North-west is for Chase 
quite as much as for Seward. I think he is mistaken ; for I have the 
best information to the contrary, particularly from Wisconsin, Iowa, 
Minnesota, and Michigan, where the Germans, who hold the balance of 
power, are hot Seward men. 

Yours faithfully, C. A. Dana. 

P.S. — Thermometer here about 90°. 



[From Charles A. Dana.] 

New York, September 1, 1859. 
Dear Pike : The policy of Union is a subject on which the Tribune 
took its position long ago. Mr. Greeley wrote in May and June some 
five or six articles on the subject ; in his Kansas speech he enforced it 
at great length ; we shall have it from him again in a long speech which 
I expect to receive by the next California steamer. This I mention 



444 LETTER FROM MR. FESSENDEN. [Sept. 

to remind you that I have not invented or added any thing to the pro- 
gramme of the paper when it came into my hands. I have simply 
pursued, and that with greater moderation, and, I think, with much 
greater caution than he exhibited, the course which Mr. Greeley started 
it upon. I think he was right, and I think I have been right too. 

As to Mr. Bates. He has this great advantage, that while he is a 
conservative and a citizen of a Slave State he can be run as an emancipa- 
tionist and practical anti-slavery man, and carry his own State on that 
platform. Thus he may be supported by both the old Whigs and 
Americans of all the doubtful Free States, and by the Abolitionists of 
the others. This, you see, is something that can't be predicated of 
Mr. Bell or of any other Southern man whatever. 

However, these are things that will take care of themselves. But 
here in New Jersey is a State election at hand which it is important 
not to lose. Another is to take place in New York. The Americans 
hold the balance of power in both. Their party is in the act of final 
dissolution. Shall we let the fragments fall into the arms of the Loco- 
focos ? I think we had better not ; and I believe that the course of 
the Tribune for these three or four months has saved them to the 
Republicans. 

It seems to me that Breckenridge must be the Democratic candidate. 
And he will be a hard one to beat. 

There can be no question that if we are to be beaten, Seward is the 
best man to run. But I hope we are not to re-enact with him the old 
Whig tragedy of Henry Clay. 

Let me hear from the Oregon question as soon as you conveniently 
can. 

There is a difference between Weed and Morgan. M. is not so 
malleable as was expected. But he is the best Governor New-York has 
had for twenty years. 

Yours faithfully, C. A. D. 

P. S. — The Count is still in Canada. He has written two or three 
letters to the paper. He now thinks that I am a good boy, but that 
Ripley is a villain. 



[From William Pitt Fessenden.] 

Portland, September 4, 1859. 
My Dear Pike : I am sorry to be compelled to say that I must 
give up the camp. Business has been growing upon me to such an 
extent that I must give the remainder of my time to it. 



1859] LETTERS FROM MR. FESSENDEN. 445 

I have just returned from a fortnight's tour, having spent much of 
it at Saratoga. Preston King came over from Ballston to see me for a 
day, and I returned by way of Rutland. I also saw Harvey at the 
Revere, he having been at Brattleboro' for a few weeks. How doctors 
disagree ! Harvey thinks that neither Seward, Chase, nor Banks has a 
living chance for the nomination, and is, at present, inclined to stump 
on Judge McLean, who is bright and hearty again, provided he con- 
tinues so. He thinks, moreover, that the Republicans have no living 
issue left. I didn't discuss the matter with him, of course. 

Weston is here, and has come to the conclusion that Douglas will 
force a nomination, and will be dangerous. W. is a sagacious man, 
but if the South agrees to Douglas it will lose its character. He (D.) 
would be troublesome in one or two States, but would lose several 
Southern ones, iu my judgment. 

After all, speculation is idle just now. We must wait and see. 
You and Pennsylvania may become reconciled to Seward yet, and then 
I shall expect to see him elected. 

Yours very truly, W. P. Fessenden. 

J. S. Pike, Esq. 



[From William Pitt Fessenden.] 

Portland, September 26, 1859. 

My Dear Pike : I went to the " United States" on two successive 
days, but didn't find you. You ought to know that if there is a corner 
of my house not occupied at any time, your filling it is a pleasure to me, 
whether there is room for you elsewhere or not. And a man wouldn't 
love you unless he loved your wife also. 

I do not know when the ship [the Great Eastern] will arrive, and we 
all expect our friends, and shall do our best to take care of them. You 
may feel sure that I shall be glad to see you and Mrs. Pike, just as I 
know you would be glad to see me. So " nuff sed" on that point. 

But if I am full when you arrive, all is, you shall find a place some- 
where. Just consider me your Committee of Arrangements. For so 
you may be certain I should do by you under like circumstances, and 
feel that I was doing just the thing you would expect me to do. 

Maine did the thing about right, didn't she ? 

What do you think of New York Americanism ? 

Yours always, W. P. Fessenden. 



443 KILLING OF SENATOR BRODERICK. [Oct. 

MUKDER OF SENATOR BRODERICK. 
[From the Washington Era of October 29.] 

The killing of Senator Broderick in a dnel by Judge Terry is 
one of the most execrable tragedies in onr recent political history. 
Though neither a Republican nor an anti-slavery man himself, 
he is yet a victim and a martyr to the spirit of slavery. He has 
been hunted to his death because he dared resist the tide of pro- 
slavery fanaticism in California. He dared to stand up, both in 
Congress and out, against the leaders of the negro-holding aris- 
tocracy, and he pays the penalty of his resistance by his untimely 
end. He was marked for destruction, and he has been destroyed. 
Such bloody instances as this are among the pains and penalties 
which the cause of freedom has to suffer in its struggles against a 
barbarous enemy in its march toward a final triumph. 

We by no means wish to be understood as indorsing either 
the principles or position of the late lamented Senator Broderick. 
He occupied his own peculiar place. That place was at least 
one of respectability and manliness. He acted under the light 
he had. That he acted on a comparatively low plane is not to 
be imputed to any want of uprightness and integrity. He had 
the character and the determination to resist the demands of the 
fell tyranny that sought either to sway or to crush him. If he 
did not exhibit the spirit of a reformer, he yet manifested the 
temper of a man. He refused to succumb to dictation, he stood 
faithfully by what he regarded to be the rights of the people. 
For this he perished, and it is for this we honor him. The im- 
mediate circumstances of his death are immaterial. He hap- 
pened to fall by the hand of Judge Terry. But if he had es- 
caped his deadly aim, the bowie-knife or revolver of some other 
of the conspirators against his life would have been equally fatal. 
He was a doomed man. His fate reads a lesson alike to those 
who went with him in his hostility to the slave-holders, and to 
those who go farther than he did. It should animate resolu- 
tion, and fortify determination to hedge in and destroy that stalk- 
ing tyrant, the slave power, that thus vindictively pursues its 
victims to the grave. 

We are taught another lesson in the death of Mr. Broderick. 
And that is the consummate folly of unprepared, unpractised 
men allowing themselves to be dragooned into the duel with 



1859] JUDGE TERRY. 447 

proficients in the art of human slaughter. Of course, we de- 
nounce the duel in all its aspects as a hideous relic of barbaric 
ages. But we here particularly condemn it as an engine of assas- 
sination. Judge Terry is a Texan. Of his personal character- 
istics we know nothing. But this we do know : That the peo- 
ple of his section dwell in arsenals, and are themselves often walk- 
ing arsenals. Slavery necessarily compels constant war, forces 
the arming of the dominant race. They are therefore skilled in 
the use of weapons. Powder and lead are important items in 
every Texan's annual domestic expenditure. Every man's 
house and every man's pockets are crowded with deadly weapons. 
South-western life and history is full of feud and quarrel and 
bloody collision. Probably a majority of the Southern members 
of Congress to-day have had at some period or other in their 
lives, an affray, an encounter of some sort, and very often 
bloody and fatal. On the other hand, we do not suppose there 
are five members from the Northern States who ever were en- 
gaged in any thing of the kind. In the South to be a fighting 
man is a good passport to Congress. In the North to be a fight- 
ing man is reckoned a conclusive reason for such a man being 
kept out of that body. These statements afford sufficient indi- 
cation of the inequality of the position of individuals of the two 
sections when opposed in the duel. It is well illustrated in Sen- 
ator Broderick's own case. He was a New Yorker. His oppo- 
nent came from the far South. Unused to his task, Broderick's 
pistol was discharged through confusion or accident before it was 
in a position to endanger his antagonist. Profiting by this cir- 
cumstance his wily adversary had only to deliberately level his 
weapon, without risk, and coolly fire through the body of his 
victim ; which he did, with scientific skill and fatal accuracy, 
his ball evidently going within an inch of the spot he intended 
to strike. 

Southern men, in their duelling intercourse with one 
another, seldom come to actual conflict. Duelling itself is not 
only a profession with them, but duelling correspondence is 
equally an art. They are usually proficients in both. On the 
contrary, Northern men know nothing about either. "When a 
Northern man can be forced or induced to recognize the 
code, he at once finds himself enveloped in mysteries of corre- 



448 PRACTICE OF ASSASSINATION. [Oct. 

spondence, as well as ignorant of the customs and practices of 
the duellist. If he is likely to be found a troublesome antago- 
nist, as Brooks found Burlingame, suddenly a convenient way of 
escape is found for the reluctant brave, in the written propo- 
sitions that precede the meeting. 

If, on the contrary, he is likely to be but a blunderer, as most 
of them certainly would be at this business, then he is regarded 
only as a target which quick shooting or some other sleight-of- 
hand contrivance is sure to hit. As a general proposition there 
is no equality between the parties when they are Northern and 
Southern men, and it is intended there shall be none. Practice, 
skill, quickness, steadiness are opposed to the absence of all these 
qualities, and the chances against the inexperienced side are as 
ten to one. We say, therefore, it is stupid folly for Northern 
men, with their habits, to accept the duelling code at the hands 
of the South. 

Moreover, it is too near the business of assassination to suit 
any man of genuine honor or humanity. Our professed duelling 
men are mere assassins. They hunt in couples. No one of 
them intends to put himself fairly and aboveboard against an an- 
tagonist every way equal. Is a man to be attacked ? Then he 
must be allowed no fair chance. Sumner, unarmed, was assailed 
sitting and confined, by an armed man. Close by stood a con- 
federate bristling with weapons, ready at a moment's warning. 
Had Sumner drawn a pistol and shot Brooks, Keitt would have 
drawn a bowie-knife and stabbed Sumner to the heart. He 
stood by his friend to guard and revenge this very contingency. 
What is this but the confederacy of assassins ? When a job of 
this or kindred character is to be done, who of these men goes 
alone ? One follows another at convenient distance, as they 
prowl through the streets. If the attack of a single adversary is 
made, before the victim can recover himself he finds his enemy 
doubled. This is South Carolina practice. We call it assassina- 
tion, and nothing else. We say the whole duelling code, as at- 
tempted to be applied to Northern men, is no better than a code 
of assassination, brutal, cowardly, and infamous. We consider 
Senator Broderick's murder a case in point. He was without 
the practice or the habits of the duellist. He had spent months 
in an excited political canvass. Fresh from the heat of mental 



1859] BRODERICK'S CHARACTER. 44£ 

strife, his nervous sensibilities at the highest pitch, without fa- 
miliarity with the use of weapons, with no time for training, he 
is suddenly called to the field before breakfast of the next morn- 
ing after the election, with its smart of defeat fresh and provok- 
ing, by a disciplined and trained fighting man of the South-west 
— a man who, it is fair to suppose, from what is said of his ap- 
pearance on the ground, had been carefully and deliberately pre- 
paring himself for the event during the whole period in which 
Broderick had been on the stump. 

Thus unequally matched, what was to be naturally expected 
but just what followed ? The inexperienced man's pistol going 
off before he had even aimed it ; the experienced man's bullet, 
fired at leisure, and without risk, going with deadly malevolence 
straight through the vitals of his victim. The act is a cool, pre- 
meditated murder and nothing else. Unpractised Northern men 
are fools to allow themselves to be dragooned into such toils. 
Let the assassins of the slave power be met as assassins. Let 
them bear the odium of their real vocation. And let Northern 
men do their duty and prepare for whatever consequences may 
threaten, but let no one of them foolishly expose his life to the 
unequal chances of a challenge conflict with men of such an in- 
famous profession. 

Senator Broderick's whole course, since he has been in the 
Senate, has been such as to command the respect of all sides. 
Unassuming in his deportment, upright in his conduct and pur- 
poses, attentive and fearless in the discharge of his duties, his 
loss is a public calamity, irrespective of his political position and 
the circumstances of liis violent death. 



JOHN BROWN. 
[From the New York Tribune of October 29, 1859.] 

John Brown is a natural production, born on the soil of Kan- 
sas, out of the germinating heats the great contest on the soil of 
that Territory engendered. Before the day of Kansas outrages 
and oppression no such person as Osawatamie Brown existed. 
No such person could have existed. He was born of rapine 
and cruelty and murder. Revenge rocked his cradle, dis- 



450 OLD JOHN DROWN. [Oct. 

ciplined his arm, and nerved his soul. We do not mean to say 
that revenge alone was the motive power that actuated him. 
His moral nature was roused, and its instincts and logic backed 
his determination with a profound power. But Kansas deeds, 
Kansas experiences, Kansas discipline created John Brown as 
entirely and completely as the French Revolution created Na- 
poleon Bonaparte. He is as much the fruit of Kansas as "Wash- 
ington was the fruit of our own Revolution. 

Let those, then, who have reproaches to heap upon the au- 
thors of the Harper's Ferry bloody tumult and general Southern 
fright, go back to the true cause of it all. Let them not blame 
blind and inevitable instruments in the work, nor falsely malign 
those who are in nowise implicated, directly or indirectly ; but 
let them patiently investigate the true source whence this de- 
monstration arose, and then bestow their curses and their anath- 
emas accordingly. It is childish and absurd for Governor Wise 
to seize and sit astride the wounded panting body of Old Brown, 
and think he has got the villain who set this mischief on foot. 
By no means. The head conspirators against the peace of Vir- 
ginia are ex -President Franklin Pierce and Senator Douglas. 
These are the parties he should apprehend, confine, and try for 
causing this insurrection. Next to them he should seize upon 
Senators Mason and Hunter, of Virginia, as accessories. Let 
him follow up by apprehending every supporter of the Nebraska 
bill, and when he shall have brought them all to condign punish- 
ment, he will have discharged his duty, but not till then. 

As to this whole tumultuous raid of subsequent excited vol- 
unteers and fussy officials against a crowd of unarmed and 
frightened negroes, with this malicious effort to fix criminality 
or blame upon innocent parties, to subserve personal or party ends, 
we can only regard it with contempt. There is nothing in it 
worthy of any other emotion. It has neither sense nor dignity 
nor honesty. Old Brown is simply a spark of a great fire kindled 
by short-sighted mortals. When Old Virginia had roused her- 
self in the persons of her governor and senators, and in the 
might of her military power, and had extinguished that spark by 
getting old Brown under, wiry, that was the end. That was all 
there was to be done. The subsequent valor and activity, the 
epaulettes and lace, and horses and sabres, afterward displayed 



1859] LETTER FROM CHARLES SUMNER. 451 

were so much sheer surplus, and the exhibition only provocative 
of ridicule. The other branch of the display, in pretending to 
fix the responsibility of the outbreak upon the Republicans gen- 
erally, we dismiss with the exposition we have already made. 
There is no just responsibility resting anywhere, no just attribu- 
tion of causes anywhere, for this violent attempt that does not 
fall directly upon the South itself. It has deliberately challenged 
and wantonly provoked the elements that have concentred and 
exploded. 



[From Charles Sumner.] 

Washington, December 4, 1859. 
Dear Mr. Pike : I am surprised and pained at what I learn from you 
of the affairs of Dr. B. . . . 

Every anti-Slaveryman is his debtor, and I shall rejoice in any op- 
portunity of testifying, by word or act, to this conviction. 
Pray let me know frankly what I can do to this end. 
I shall see Mrs. B. to-day. 

There are other things of which I shall be glad to talk with you. 
But you will surely be here with the New Year. 

Present my compliments to Mrs. Pike, and believe me, 
Ever faithfully yours, 

Charles Sumner. 



GOVERNOR WISE ON JOHN BROWN. 
[From the New York Tribune of December 8.] 

Governor "Wise complains of General Sympathy, and is re- 
ported to have said he would have preferred his execution to that 
of John Brown. The sentiment, or one similar to it, has been 
re-echoed in Congress. The Southern men profess astonishment 
and indignation that the execution of John Brown should excite 
sympathy in the North. Even our professional Union-savers are 
excited to rattle their dry bones at the spectacle, and propose cot- 
ton meetings to condemn it. 

But, what is there remarkable in the exhibition ? John 
Brown has been pronounced by Governor Wise a man, il honest, 
truthful, and sincere." Is it not an astonishing fact that such a 
citizen should be condemned to death and executed bv hanging ? 



452 GOVERNOR WISE ON JOHN BROWN. [Dec. 

Is it any wonder that such a fate for such a man should excite 
sympathy ? Straightforward, simple-minded people are at a loss 
to comprehend how it is that the gallows should be the doom of 
the " honest, truthful, and sincere." They have a stubborn be- 
lief that that awful engine of death was intended for another and 
very different sort of persons. In Governor Wise's own volun- 
teered indorsement of John Brown's character is to be found 
ample reason for all the sympathy shown toward that brave but 
misguided man. "Honest, truthful, and sincere" — Governor 
Wise understands the force of his own language. And when he 
thus characterizes a man, ought he to expect, ought any man 
with a heart in his bosom to expect, to repress the sympathy 
that is naturally excited by the hanging of such a citizen f 
We do not need to tell Governor Wise or anybody else that the 
thing is impossible. That sympathy is as widespread as human- 
ity itself. Governor Wise would have to belie his own nature 
to deny that he himself feels it. 

Here, then, is the rub. It lies in the cause that exacts, or, 
if you please, necessitates, the hanging of an " honest, sincere, 
and truthful" man. All agree that that cause is slavery. But 
thence comes a diversity of feeling. Governor Wise and other 
supporters of slavery at this point diverge from the sympathies 
of many others. That is all. The governor and his coadjutors 
believe in hanging "honest, sincere, and truthful" men for the 
benefit of slavery. But humanity and civilization revolt at the 
spectacle. 



INCENDIARISM. 

[From the New York Tribune of December 13.] 

Who are the incendiaries ? The autocrat who presides at the 
head of the Post-Office Department dares to pronounce upon the 
character of the matter that shall be allowed to pass through the 
public mail. He declares incendiary matter shall not be trans- 
mitted. But, leaving aside this monstrous pretension, we ask, 
What is incendiary matter ? Who are the incendiaries against 
whom his despotic rule proposes to shield the Slave States? Is it 
only the Republican journals that are to be stamped out in the 
South? A little reflection will convince Postmaster Holt that he 



18.59] POST-OFFICE USURPATIONS. 453 

has undertaken a more difficult and comprehensive job than he 
imagined he was undertaking in thus outraging the common 
rights of every American citizen. Will Postmaster Holt permit 
the transmission of the proceedings of the recent Union-saving 
meeting in Boston, got up especially to reassure the South, to 
sympathize with the slave-holders, to save the Union ? Does not 
the presiding officer of that meeting declare that he is opposed to 
the spread of slavery, and desires its abolition? Did not its most 
eloquent orator expose the vital weakness of the South by illus- 
trating the dangers that encompass it, and the ease with which 
its patriarchal institution could be demolished ? Is not this in- 
cendiary matter ? Is it not just such views that the South pro- 
tests against fiercely and constantly ? Are they not the very 
things the Southerners say should be suppressed and must be 
suppressed ? How is it with that reckless and unprincipled sheet 
the Herald f Certainly it is the most incendiary of all publica- 
tions. It publishes Mr. Seward's Rochester speech once in 
every six months at least. It prints Henry "Ward Beecher's ser- 
mons with John Brown's comments. It publishes Wendell 
Phillips's rank abolition speeches, and all the proceedings of the 
most furious anti -slavery assemblages that get together in this 
city and elsewhere. If any outrageously radical emancipation 
sentiment gets expression in any part of the country, the Herald 
pounces upon it and publishes it, and dwells lovingly upon it for 
the amiable purpose of showing what incarnate devils the Re- 
publicans are. The Herald is thus crammed brimful of incen- 
diary matter all the time. How, then, can Postmaster Holt, how 
can Virginia permit the circulation of the Herald f 

The truth is, that to the South, while holding her present 
position, all matter that is not carefully prepared with express 
reference to the institution of slavery is " incendiary." Leading 
articles, paragraphs, reports of public meetings, speeches, geo- 
graphical and statistical information, every genuine utterance of 
the human heart, every untrammelled conception of the human 
brain is opposed to slavery, and, in this sense, incendiary. 
Thought itself is incendiary. 

What then is to be the limit to the circulation of printed mat- 
ter in the South, if it is determined to avoid and exclude 
every thing that bears against slavery ? What but absolute sup- 



454 LETTER FROM CHARLES SUMNER. [Dec. 

pression and exclusion? There can be no stopping short of this. 
The rule must be silence — perfect, utter, inexorable silence ; the 
silence of despotism — brutal, stolid, universal ; the silence of the 
dungeon — of death. And for every man who violates the rule 
hanging is the only specific. Brown has been hung, Seward 
should be hung, howls out a Southern representative in Congress. 
He is an incendiary. Come, Mr. Postmaster Holt, if these are 
not your limitations, say what they are. Let us know what is 
incendiary matter in your opinion. If you can tolerate the 
Herald, with John Brown's, Theodore Parker's, Lloyd Garri- 
son's, and Wendell Phillips's speeches, and deem it tit to circu- 
late in the South, perhaps we can make up the Tribune so as to 
suit even your fastidious taste. Speak out, Mr. Holt ! 



[From Charles Sumner.] 

Washington, December 14, 1859. 

My Dear Sir : Pray, if you can, talk with Mr. Weed about 
Mrs. B.'s case. Twice I have tried to see him, but he has now left 
town. 

I am in constant communication with members on this matter, and 
find response. But as yet no person is fixed upon in whose name 
Mrs. B. can be represented. Perhaps this cannot be done till after the 
election of Speaker. 

I have always insisted that no arrangement should be permitted 
which did not recognize Mrs. B. 

Tell the Count that I always welcome him and all that he can say. 
But I have no personal griefs to dwell on. I have suffered. But what 
is all this compared with the cause ? On sait assez qu'on ne doit guere 
parler de sa femme ; mais on ne sait pas assez qu'on ne doit guere parler 
de soi. This is Rochefoucauld, and the Count will agree in it. 

Ever sincerely yours, Charles Sumner. 



[From Ex-Senator Truman Smith.] 

New- York City, 49 Wall Street, ) 
December 26, 1859, \ 

My Dear Sir : I have long been of the opinion that the question 
of slavery in our territories is not treated in our leading Republican 



1859] LETTER FROM TRUMAN SMITH. 455 

journals in a way best calculated to produce an effect on the masses — 
particularly the laboring masses — in the free States. I send you an 
article which I have prepared expressive in some degree of my views on 
this subject, but I have in my mind other ideas which it seems to me 
should be developed and kept incessantly before the Northern mind ; 
but being deeply engaged in my profession, I can only talk them over, 
and shall be happy to do so if you will call at my office. 

Faithfully yours, Truman Smith. 

Hon. Pike. 

P. S. — The manuscript inclosed is entirely at your disposal ; it 
will not mortify me in the least if you stick it into the fire. 



HOLT & CO. VS. CIVILIZATION. 
[From the New York Tribune of December 27.] 

The New York Herald doesn't deny its incendiary char- 
acter, but declares it does not care a brass farthing for its South- 
ern support, and that Mr. Postmaster Holt may cut it off as soon 
as he likes. This is neither here nor there. Our controversy is 
not with the Herald. We desire to bring the South and Mr. 
Holt to their true bearings on this subject of the circulation of 
incendiary documents. It has been very flippantly determined 
by the autocrat of the National Post- Office — who, in our estima- 
tion has as much right to say what kind of printed matter shall 
and what shall not be transported by the United States mail, as 
he has to determine what sort of fish Catholics may eat in Lent — 
that his Virginia postmasters may exclude all incendiary matter 
from the mails. Now, what we have to say is, that neither he 
nor they shall be allowed to make flesh of one and fish of another. 
If the regulation is intended simply as a partisan regulation, de- 
signed to operate on Republican journals only, let us know it ; 
and let the country know it, if it is meant to run the Post-Office 
on this basis. But if the South really means to establish a Jap- 
anese system, and cut itself off from the outside world, in respect 
to the ventilation of the negro question, let us know that ; and 
let all parties fare alike. "We want to see it demonstrated fairly 
whether the South intends to isolate itself from the surround- 
ing rays of intelligence that issue from a great daily press like 



456 POSTMASTER-GENERAL HOLT. [Dec. 

that of this city. We want to test the question whether any 
part of this country is able to deny itself the luxury, privilege, 
necessity, or what-not of a daily New York newspaper that gives 
a living picture of contemporary events of all sorts, as they arise 
throughout the world. We have our own opinions on this head, 
and they are that it cannot be done. We are clear in the opin- 
ion that the South must take the great New York newspapers, 
whether they are pleased or displeased with them. Slavery and 
the slave-holders cannot lock themselves up in seclusion and 
silence. They must hear and read what the world has to say of 
every class and institution under the sun, slavery included. 
While this government and Union endure, and until the coun- 
try gets a master too strong for the people, we have no institu- 
tions among us, we have no state and condition among us, that 
will not be thoroughly exposed North and South. If those in- 
stitutions will not bear the light, if that state and condition are at 
war with justice or humanity, so much the worse for them. But 
bear their own proper burdens they must. Submit to inspec- 
tion, investigation, probing to the bottom they must. If sla- 
very cannot stand such a discussion, so much the worse for sla- 
very. The nineteenth century will not roll backward on its ac- 
count. Slavery must submit to the scrutiny and the ordeal that 
all things human and divine are now subjected to by the intelli- 
gence of the world. 

Such, at least, is our opinion. If the South contests the 
point, and intends to try to resist the currents of civilization, if 
it is able to secure the continuous services of Mr. Postmaster 
Holt, it may succeed. The first Mrs. Partington was not able to 
sweep back the rising waves of the Atlantic, but a second Mrs. 
Partington might do better. There is nothing like trying in this 
world. Mr. Holt talks bravely, and says he has a great backer 
in Pierce's Attorney- General ; and the two together may be 
more than a match for time and civilization. What we particu- 
larly desire to know is, whether the South and Mr. Postmaster 
Holt are in earnest in this contest, or whether it is only the in- 
tention of the parties concerned to reduce the Post-Office Depart- 
ment to a mere instrument of partisan politics. 



1859] SOUTH WANT8 TO BE LET ALONE. 457 

" LET US ALONE." 
[From the New York Tribune of December 30.] 

The Richmond Whig indorses the sentiment of the Mem- 
phis Avalanche that all the South wants is "to be let alone. ' ' 
But how "let alone?" This phrase covers a very comprehen- 
sive meaning, or may be made to do so. The burglar may say 
all he wants is "to be let alone." The African slave-trader 
may say all he desires is "to be let alone. ' ' We are a Confederacy 
of States, embracing vast diversities of climate, position, and oc- 
cupation. The North is commercial and manufacturing ; the 
West agricultural ; the South plants broad acres by a peculiar 
form of labor. The interests of the various sections are to a con- 
siderable extent diverse, and yet the action of the Confederacy 
must be a unit. Recur for a moment to our past history. The 
maritime interest of the Republic is highly prosperous. Our 
canvas whitens every sea. The nation's rights are infringed. 
The Confederacy deems it an imperative duty to impose restraints 
and put shackles upon our foreign commerce, and the maritime 
interests of the North fall prostrate before the embargo and the 
war that follows. Those interests could have exclaimed, did ex- 
claim, all we want is "to be let alone. ' ' But the common in- 
terest of all demanded that they should not be let alone. And 
they were not. When a high tariff had turned capital into man- 
ufacturing channels, and its industry was prospering, that in- 
dustry demanded " to be let alone. ' ' But the tariff was reckoned 
to be a bridle on the planting interests of the South, and it was 
repealed, and manufacturing industry turned adrift to shift for 
itself. When the commercial interest had established a financial 
system that suited it, it demanded "to be let alone. ' ' But it 
was not, and the United States Bank fell before other interests 
combined against it. When territorial expansion at the South 
was demanded in the annexation of Texas, in order to spread 
and strengthen slavery, Northern interests and principles op- 
posed and demanded ' c to be let alone. ' ' But the Confederacy 
acting as a whole said, " We will take Texas," and Texas was 
taken ; and what was not openly bargained for, a war with Mex- 
ico, was taken at the same time. That war brought more terri- 
tory, and forthwith disputes arose between the North and South 



458 THE SOUTH IS ALWAYS DOING. [Dec. 

as to whether it should be free or slave territory. Neither side 
in this controversy was content " to let alone," or be " let alone." 
Interests and principles clashed in the contest, or were supposed 
to clash, and the dispute went on. 

This recital is simply intended as an illustration. It shows that 
diverse sections and diverse interests within the common Union 
never have let one another alone, and, by inference, that they 
never will. This inference, based on the facts of our history, is 
amply sustained by the deductions of reason and common-sense. 
The very fact that we have a country extending through distant 
parallels of latitude, giving variety of climate and production, 
that a portion is ocean-washed and abounds in safe havens, while 
other portions lie far inland, or are debarred from maritime de- 
velopment by shoal waters and shifting sands, is enough to ac- 
count for various and antagonistic interests. When we add to this 
the great fact of our national life and history, that one portion is 
covered with free laborers and another portion occupied by a de- 
graded and servile race, we find elements inevitably hostile, 
always clashing; a conflict " irrepressible. " 

For any one part of a great country thus situated and circum- 
stanced, to enunciate in the midst of that country's career, with 
legislation of every sort bound up in the volumes of its statutes, 
holding each portion to certain duties and responsibilities, creating 
claims and compensations, and reciprocal obligations ; for any 
part of such a country to undertake to express the exigencies of 
its national wants in the simple formula, ' ' All we want is to be 
let alone," discloses a lack of comprehension of its condition and 
relations not at all creditable to the intelligence of its utterers 
or its indorsers, whether in the first or second degree. 

Yet we have the requirement thrust upon our attention as a 
demand of the simplest and most modest nature. Now we beg to 
observe that the Southern end of this Confederacy has been do- 
ing something of vast consequence to its interests ever since it 
became a part of the Union. It did something vitally affecting 
the whole public weal when it took Texas and brought on the 
war with Mexico, in order to get territory on which to spread 
slavery. It did something of unusual significance when it in- 
sisted upon throwing down every barrier to the spread of slavery 
into all the Territories. It did something of very especial mo- 



1859] RIGHT OF THE NORTH. 459 

merit when it undertook to pat down free labor by violence in 
Kansas, and substitute the servile system. It did a great deal 
when it brought over the law-making, the Executive, and the 
judicial power to the side of the slave-holding party, and thus 
put the whole gigantic weight of the government of the Union 
on the side of slavery ; and it does a great deal in holding it 
there this day against the decided convictions of a large, and, 
indeed, an overwhelming majority of the people of the country. 
When, under these circumstances, we are blandly informed that 
all that the South asks is "to be let alone," and are assured that 
of all modest and natural requests this must be admitted to 
be the most modest and most natural, we claim the right of in- 
vestigating what that demand means. We think we have con- 
clusively shown that it means that the South shall be allowed to 
do just what it likes in the government and with the govern- 
ment. We appreciate the modesty of the demand, but we really 
fail to see any conclusive reason for acquiescence. We claim the 
right of the North to share in the administration of this govern- S 
ment in relation to every subject that comes within the scope 
of the Federal Constitution ; and the subject of slavery in the 
Territories and the slave-trade we claim to be among them — and 
for the best of reasons, to wit, that the Federal Government has 
acted upon them from the time of its formation until now, with 
the sanction and approval of all the most illustrious names inter- 
woven in its history. 



460 CONOBESS10NAL DUELLING. [Jan. 



1860. 



CONGRESSIONAL DUELLING. 
[From the New York Tribune of January 7, I860.] 

One of the modern methods (no doubt borrowed from the 
ancients) of acquiring a cheap reputation for valor is to challenge 
a man to mortal combat, of whom it is known that he will not 
accept the invitation. Nowhere is this expedient in higher favor 
than among the Southern members of Congress. Mr. Branch, 
of North Carolina, has just given an illustration of this fact in 
his proposal to fight Mr. Grow. Mr. Branch ought to know, 
and there can be no doubt did know, that in all Northern con- 
stituencies there is a powerful moral feeling against duelling 
which almost everywhere would be sure to end the political 
career of any representative who under any circumstances should 
be engaged in a duel. Most especially would this doom fall 
upon a man who should rush into one on a matter of punctilio 
like that with which the Hon. Mr. Branch sought to impale Mr. 
Grow. The idea of a man going out deliberately to imbrue his 
hands in the blood of a fellow-creature on account of a mere mis- 
arrangement of terms in a public discourse, in a case where no 
offence was intended, is so abhorrent to every sentiment of 
civilization, to say nothing of morals, humanity, or Christian- 
ity, that a community like any of our Free State constituencies 
would visit such an offence with swift and certain retribution. 
A man guilty of such a deed could not stand for an instant 
in the political atmosphere of the North. 

The cases in which any Northern man could fight a duel, or 
offer to fight one, without being politically destroyed, are ex- 
tremely rare. Even in the remarkable instance of Mr. Bur- 



1860] THE CODE OF HONOR. 461 

lingame, where the patriotic and partisan indignation of the North 
had been roused to the very highest pitch by the infamous 
assault on Mr. Sumner, Mr. Burlingame's re-election was perilled 
because of the manly stand he took on that occasion. He was 
even gracelessly assailed by the Boston Post, when a candidate for 
a re-election directly afterward, as a " cowardly duellist." The 
opposition to him was, happily, not successful ; but the fact that 
he was thus attacked at such a time speaks volumes in regard to 
the latent public sentiment of the North against duelling. If a 
public press in South Carolina, under similar circumstances, had 
thus assailed a candidate for such an offence the author of the 
assault would have been hooted out of the State, if he had been 
happy enough to escape an extemporized gibbet. 

Yes, a Northern man who felt himself urged to take a hated 
position from what he deemed an inexorable necessity, and in 
full sympathy with the sentiment of the hour all over the coun- 
try, was yet denounced and pursued as a " cowardly duellist" by 
the leading Democratic organ of New England, backed by a 
determined and hopeful effort of that party to crush him under 
the charge. This circumstance is of itself sufficient evidence of 
what a Free State representative would have to encounter who 
should dare to brave the hostility of his constituency by propos- 
ing, or consenting to the luxury of a duel under ordinary cir- 
cumstances. 

Now it may serve the purposes of the duelling fraternity to 
urge that this consideration is really nothing in the Court of 
Honor — that a man must tight regardless of all consequences, 
when the code demands it. This does very well for gentlemen 
who at home are not subjected to inconvenience on this score, 
but who, on the contrary, find it exceedingly profitable, in a per- 
sonal point of view, to take part in an affair of honor. But until 
this state of facts is changed, we shall very lightly esteem all such 
protestations. In fighting duels, as in most other things, men in 
general are governed by very business-like views. "We see this 
in all the circumstances belonging to the profession of duelling ; 
for duelling is a profession which has its students and its adepts 
as much as any other. And this is another point in which 
Northern men are taken at great disadvantage in the business. 
For instance, in the very matter between Mr. Branch and Mr. 



462 AN ABSURD TRAP. [Jan. 

Grow, any expert would have bowed himself out of Mr. Grow's 
dilemma with entire ease ; could have done it even gracefully 
and honorably under the code. When Mr. Grow had the ques- 
tion suddenly and unexpectedly sprung upon him, whether he, 
Mr. Grow, intended to impute conduct to Mr. Branch unworthy 
of a gentleman, all that Mr. Grow had to say, to avoid the sub- 
sequent call for satisfaction, was to declare that he was only al- 
luding to Mr. Branch in a parliamentary, and not in a personal 
sense. But Mr. Grow did not on the instant think of this duel- 
listic dodge. He had not been educated in the duelling school, 
and was not familiar with the numberless expedients of that most 
renowned class of persons known to chivalry as " men of honor." 
Any one of these, or a mere neophyte in their arts, would have 
poked this ready subterfuge at the Honorable Mr. Branch and 
disarmed him utterly and satisfied him completely. So shadowy 
are the boundaries between an insult which demands the life of 
the transgressor and no insult at all. This exposition is alone 
sufficient to cover the code with contempt as a rule for the guid- 
ance of rational beings, and its professors with derision. 

But if the professed duellist is ridiculous in one point of view, 
he is detestable in another. Taking the practices of the most 
noisy professors of the art as evidence, we pronounce the whole 
body of duellists a gang of assassins. The idea of duelling is 
simply skilful assassination. The main object of its proficients 
is to avoid equal combat. Thus, the first point in a " difficulty" 
is to adroitly manage so as to throw the onus, or the necessity 
of acting, upon your adversary. This makes him the chal- 
lenger, giving to you the choice of the kind of weapons, which 
is of so much consequence in many cases as to forestall the re- 
sult. "When this advantage is lost, the next is to obtain a choice 
of the special weapons to be used. This is sometimes of equal 
importance. It was so in the case of Terry and Broderick. 
The latter was a dead man the moment the choice of the pistols 
fell to his trained adversary. 

But our more distinguished professors of the art often do not 
allow their intended victims any chance whatever. They delib- 
erately arm themselves and hunt in couples, tracking their un- 
armed victims even to their places in the public councils ; and 
there, while one assails with bloody and murderous intent, the 



1860] SOUTHERN DUELLISTS ASSASSINS. 4G3 

confederate stands by loaded with deadly weapons, ready to 
shoot down the victim if he resists, or any one else who inter- 
feres for his rescue. Such are the modes and practices of our 
duellists of the Slave States. If a more cowardly and atrocious 
method of assassination prevails anywhere, we are ignorant of 
the locality. The fact that it has been put in practice at Wash- 
ington is enough to forever blast all reputation for honor or de- 
cency on the part of a class who justify such deeds. Prating of 
courage and honor, and the necessity of personal responsibility 
in the intercourse between gentlemen, in nowise palliates the 
diabolical character of such barbarous and cowardly conduct, or 
takes the parties to such transactions or their defenders out of 
the category of assassins, with whom no man of decency or hu- 
manity could entertain a serious quarrel of any kind. 

But there is another peculiar reason why Northern men 
should decline all pistol controversies. That is, that the North- 
ern people do not, as a general thing, send their fighting men 
and bullies to Congress. We have plenty of this class of per- 
sons, but they rarely if ever find their way to Washington as 
representatives or senators. New York City and all our large 
towns can furnish any number of plug-ugly customers, who 
could, if necessity required, do up a monstrous quantity of work 
in the fighting line. But we do not think it would improve 
matters at Washington to launch a squadron of these gentry 
upon the federal capital. Our Southern braves might con- 
clude that it would be quite too much of a good thing. Our 
members of Congress at home are almost universally peaceable 
men. We doubt if there are five representatives from Free 
States who were ever engaged in a personal broil in their lives. 
On the other hand, we doubt if there are five representatives 
from the Slave States who have not been engaged in one or 
more broils, often of a very serious character. A good, stiff, 
bloody fight at home would be a real help to a Southern man in 
the way of getting into Congress ; while such a thing in the 
North would be fatal to any man's hopes in that line. Thus it 
is that the two sections are very unequally matched in this re- 
spect. It is pitting the practised against the unpractised. It is 
opposing skill and experience against the want of both. Brod- 
erick, with all his coolness and bravery, stood no chance against 



464 INCENDIARY PUBLICATIONS. [Jan. 

Terry on this very ground. And what sort of a match would a 
gentleman like Charles Sumner be for a fellow like Brooks ? 
Yet it is these very inequalities that render our loving cousins 
from the South so very free in their language, and so uncom- 
monly ready at all manner of truculent demonstrations. They 
are very brave at an exceedingly cheap rate, as they always have 
been. 

We have referred to this subject at this time without regard- 
ing the moral aspect of the question, not because that is not of 
controlling importance and weight, but because we have desired 
to present views that we consider better suited to the nature and 
quality of the members of the duelling profession. 



INCENDIARIES — WORSE AND WORSE. 
[From the New York Tribune of January 9, I860.] 

Another freight of incendiary matter was dispatched through- 
out the Slave States yesterday in the New York Herald. It 
was composed of a summary, filling a page of that inflamma- 
tory journal of all the slave insurrections that have ever taken 
place, with all their exciting and frightful details. It is an ex- 
position going to show the slaves and disaffected poor whites in 
the South just what has been done, and what can be done again 
in the way of a bloody rising to throw off the galling yoke of 
slavery. This exposition is accompanied by commentaries to 
show how great is the apprehension and dread felt by the South 
of these fearful social convulsions, and what horrors they inflict 
and leave in their train. The whole thing appears to be got up 
with the malevolent design of producing a repetition of the hor- 
rible scenes there depicted, for the purpose of thereby winning 
some possible political advantage over the republicans in some 
present or future contest in the North. This diabolical purpose 
peers through the whole of this exposition as it has done in the 
general drift of that newspaper for weeks. It discloses a depth 
of treachery to Southern society, for the mere chance of a con- 
tingent and remote political advantage in the North, which it 
would be difficult to parallel. We venture to say that the reck- 
less malignity of the effort cannot be equalled out of the col- 
umns of the same journal. 



1860] THE HERALD AND MR. HOLT. 465 

The real object is attempted to be vailed by the preposterous 
deduction from the facts narrated that the Republican party- 
should be defeated because they desire to prevent the spread of 
an institution thus terrible in its consequences ; whereas, all the 
world sees, and every man knows, that the very fact of these 
dreadful insurrections is one of the most powerful and conclu- 
sive arguments against the spread of slavery that mortal man can 
adduce. 

To spread slavery into any country is to fill it with moral 
volcanoes, as these insurrections show. It is to dig mines under 
the whole of society, and fill them with magazines of frightful 
extent and power, that only await the lapse of time and circum- 
stance to explode with wide and certain devastation and ruin. 
How gigantic, then, is the absurdity of the Herald in pretending 
that striving to prevent the spread of this evil of African slavery 
on this continent tends to promote these social explosions ! No ! 
the argument is as insincere as the purpose is malignant. The 
Herald shows itself, in its whole course, ready to excite any 
convulsion in the South, social or political, whether sudden and 
bloody or remotely and lastingly bitter and sanguinary, it plainly 
does not care a rush which. 

Of all mischievous and inflammatory journals circulated in 
the Slave States, we again say, therefore, the Herald is the 
worst ; and we renewedly appeal to Mr. Postmaster Holt and 
his Virginia postmastering censors to place it in the list of papers 
which those self -elected robbers of the mail-bags dare to say 
shall not circulate on the forbidden ground. You pretend, Mr. 
Holt, to be the guardian and protector of Virginia tranquillity. If 
you are what you pretend — if your creatures are what they pre- 
tend to be — dare you stand silent and dumb while these exam- 
ples of arson and murder are held enticingly before the oppressed 
and incendiary people in slavery, whose revenges you profess so 
much to fear ? 



ME. RAYMOND S SPEECH. 
[From the New York Tribune of January 11.] 

The Union-saving meetings in the North afford an excellent 
opportunity to ventilate a very superfluous kind of oratory. We 



466 GOVERNOR RAYMOND'S SPEECH. [Jan. 

do not allude, of course, to the Charles O'Conor stripe of men, 
because they are audacious and refreshing. Such do not j>re- 
scribe emollients to the suffering body politic, but go for scarifi- 
cations and heroic treatment generally, warranted to kill or cure 
in the shortest possible time. But gentlemen like Governor 
Hunt or Lieutenant-Governor Raymond are not of this class. 
Neither of these statesmen belongs to any healthy political or- 
ganization, and they attend these meetings to say what nobody 
wants to hear, and what amounts to nothing when it is said. 
A speech of Mr. Raymond at the Troy Union meeting was 
printed last week in the New York Times, which we have only 
just now perused. In this speech Mr. Raymond expounds his 
political views as they stood on that day. From a large amount 
of in-and-out kind of observation, in which something seems to 
be said only to be qualified or taken back again, we have ex- 
tracted what appears to be his position on the relative duty of 
the North and South toward each other — a duty which, if duly 
performed, he is of opinion, would preserve this Union — a 
Union, however, that he is satisfied cannot be broken by any 
means, and which, he says, he is persuaded, is substantially 
broken already ; and whether broken or not, he further adds, is 
a matter of no great consequence any way, except to the South, 
which would, in such an event, be surely destroyed by a vast 
crop of John Browns. 

Mr. Raymond's recipe being simple, we conclude it is best 
for us to advertise it, since a good many anxious people are 
afraid our national disorders are fast growing incurable. This 
opinion, we trust, they will take an early occasion to dismiss, 
after hearing Dr. Raymond's prescription for the restoration of 
the national health. Our Doctor says that to preserve the Union 
the North and South have each got to do something. This is 
very well. Now let us see what it is. The duties of the North 
in Dr. Raymond's schedule being the most numerous, we begin 
with them. First, then, Dr. R. says the North must make laws 
to prevent the John Browns from going down into Virginia, and 
for punishing them if they do go. In the first place, we must say 
that this proposition is vague, because prevention of acts that are 
only contemplated is beyond the power of all law. All that can be 
done is to punish offences when committed. But pf what value 



1860] DR. RAYMOND PRESCRIBES. 467 

would a law of this sort be to Yirginia in a Harper's Ferry in- 
vasion ? "When Yirginia catches the intruders, does not she hang 
them ? And if they should escape, is it not already obligatory 
upon the States to which they flee to deliver them up to those 
whose laws they offend ? What need of more than this ? The 
duty is already fully performed, and all the laws in the world 
would not improve the present state of things either as regards 
prevention or punishment. 

Secondly. The North shall make no laws to discharge fu- 
gitives, says Dr. Raymond. All right, say we. But we sup- 
pose even the Doctor himself would not object to ascertaining 
whether a claimed fugitive is actually a fugitive before he would 
give him up. This is all we propose in the case ; and we know 
no fairer way to ascertain the fact than by a trial by jury. Con- 
gress may pass any fugitive law it likes, and if it will incor- 
porate this provision into it we will answer for it that every 
thing like serious hostility to the operation of the law will cease 
throughout the North. Does Dr. Raymond say this plan would 
fail to catch the runaway negroes ? He has no right to say it ; 
and the demand for such a provision rests on the clearest princi- 
ples of legal right and justice. Give us this, and controversy 
ends on point No. 2. 

Thirdly. The North must not " meddle with the domestic in- 
stitutions of the Slave States ; must not tamper with their laws ; 
must not incite the slaves to insurrection. ' : All right again, Dr. 
Raymond. Every Republican says this. 

Fourthly. Trying to stop the spread of slavery the Doctor 
thinks is perhaps commendable, but in the effort, he asserts that 
the North should implicitly follow the directions of the Supreme 
Court. That is to say, the only allowable kind of doing in this 
case is doing nothing. Stop the spread of slavery into the Ter- 
ritories, say the Republicans. That is right, says Dr. Raymond. 
You shall not stoj) the spread of slavery into the Territories, says 
the Supreme Court. Exactly so, that is right, says Dr. Raymond. 
With this extraordinary consistency and lucidity is this knotty 
point of his discourse treated by the ex-Lieutenant-Governor. 
We can hardly do justice to his manipulation by the brevity of 
our statement. We, however, preserve its substance. 

Such is a summary of the present duties of the North as de- 



4C8 MR. CUSHING—MR. CONOR. [Jan. 

fined by our orator. Let us see what he lays down as the duties- 
of the South. 

The South must recognize the fact that the North is not, in 
the abstract, in favor of slavery ; this sentiment the South must 
not attempt to change by reasoning or coercion. On this point 
the ex-Lieutenant-Governor professes to be firm. He declares 
that if the North must subscribe to the doctrine that slavery, in 
the abstract, is a compendium of all the Christian graces, as a 
condition of a continuance of the Union, then for his part he is 
willling to say, " Good-by to the Union." He won't stand 
such nonsense. Slavery can go where it likes, and do what it 
likes, and be what it likes, but as for swearing it is really good, a 
prime article in the raw state, the ex-Lieutenant says he won't. 
To which we say, Bravo ! Dr. Raymond. 

Next to this the Doctor has one more thing for the South to> 
do, and this concludes its circle of duties. He says it must 
abandon the attempts to carry slavery into the Territories. "We 
do not see how the South can refuse this small favor to our 
friend, inasmuch as it is the last he has to ask, and considering 
that slavery goes into the Territories of itself, and can't be kept 
out according to the doctrine indicated by the Supreme Court, 
which, when finally and authoritatively pronounced, all parties 
are to follow. 

This exposition comprises the leading points of Mr. Ray- 
mond's speech, and we believe fully discloses all its marrow. 
Now, we think there is a superfluity of this kind of talk wherever 
there is any of it at all, for it does not satisfy any want in the 
public mind. It is not noisy enough to impress the fools, and 
the wise men see there is nothing in it. The HerakVs tearing 
hullabaloos, pine-knot fires, brimstone flames, knock-kneed imps, 
and subterranean illuminations, got up daily with improvements 
and variations, and on the same general theme, are much more 
impressive. Mr. Cushing's wrath and oaths challenge attention 
by their vigor and passion. Mr. O' Conor's learned and philo- 
sophical deductions to show that the right place for the son of a 
Virginia planter by a quadroon slave is a rice swamp, under the 
lash of an overseer, excite everybody's admiration for their hu- 
manity and general loveliness. But these dreadful platitudes, 
that have neither brass nor audacity, nor the heats and passions 



1860] HELPER'S INFLAMMATORY BOOK. 469 

of pandemonium, but only exhibit a boxing-glove conflict be- 
tween suppressed convictions and an agile insincerity, do not 
amount to any thing. Nothing at all, Dr. Raymond. Nothing 
at all. 



THE HELPER BOOK. 
[From the New York Tribune of January 12.] 

"The stars in their courses fought against Sisera. " The 
slavery question cannot be discussed, even in the most commen- 
datory manner^ without inuring to the advancement of the cause 
of truth and righteousness. The Congressional denunciations of 
Helper's book are producing the most astonishing effect in pro- 
moting its circulation. The orders flow in for it from all quar- 
ters, in all quantities, from a single copy up to three hundred in 
a bunch. We do not know how many copies have been ordered, 
but we have reason to believe the number already exceeds one 
hundred thousand. The price is now reduced to about eighteen 
dollars a hundred in consequence of the extensive sale. The work 
goes everywhere, through all sorts of channels, to the North, East, 
South, and West. Old fogy Union-saving merchants in the 
Southern trade stand aghast at the sly requests slipped in all 
over the South, in the shape of notes and postscripts to orders for 
goods, for ' ' that Helper book that is making such a fuss in Con- 
gress. " Innocent bales, bags, boxes, and barrels bound South, 
looking for all the world as though they contained nothing more 
inflammatory than coffee, calico, hardware, and other similar 
commodities, have each a copy of Helper tucked furtively away 
in the hidden centre of their contents. In this way the work 
is penetrating the whole South in a maimer that, no hunter for in- 
cendiary pamphlets would suppose or can possibly arrest. If we 
go about the streets of this most conservative city, ten to one we 
are delayed at the first crossing by a hand-cart or wheelbarrow 
load of Helper. It is Helper on the counter, Helper at the 
stand, Helper in the shop and out of the shop, Helper here, 
Helper there, Helper everywhere. It looks now as though 
every man, woman, and child in the United States was bound to 
have a Helper before the year is out. There never was a politi- 
cal pamphlet that had such a rushing demand and sale before, with 



470 MR. O'CONOR'S MISTAKE. [Jan. 

the exception, perhaps, of the Life of Scott, issued in the presiden- 
tial campaign of 1852. For the extraordinary impetus thus given 
to the sale of this highly valuable and interesting work we renewed- 
ly tender our heartfelt acknowledgments to the ' ' Gulf Squadron ' ' 
of members of the Federal House of Representatives at Washing- 
ton. "We certainly never expected them to do so much for the 
cause of their country, and we dare say they are equally astounded 
and sorry to have aided it so essentially. Let them be thankful 
that they have been the means of public enlightenment on an 
important topic, and that they have widely contributed to the 
spread of anti-slavery sentiment. It shall be gratefully remem- 
bered by the children of oppression, and be chiselled on their 
tombstones. 

' ' The meanest reed that trembles in the wind, 
If Heaven select it for its instrument, 
May shed celestial music on the breeze, 
As clearly as the pipe whose notes 
Befit the lip of Phoebus. " 



MR. O CONOR S MISTAKE. 
[From the New York Tribune of January 13.] 

Mr. O' Conor makes one statement in his late letter which we 
must specially protest against. He says if the position that sla- 
very is an evil and a wrong " cannot be refuted, the Union can- 
not endure, and ought not to endure." This is a reflection upon 
the founders of the government which we cannot indorse. 
They believed a Union could subsist between Free and Slave 
States on the basis of the mutual recognition of the fact that 
slavery was an exceptional institution, at war with the funda- 
mental doctrines of the government, which, though tolerated for 
a time, would ultimately fade away and disappear. The Union 
was established on this basis, has continued on this basis, and can 
be perpetuated on this basis. What imperils the Union is the 
demand of the slave-holders and of Mr. O'Conorthat the original 
idea shall be changed, and the new one, upholding the merito- 
rious character of slavery, be substituted. It is this offensive 
claim that provokes the hostility of every genuine Democrat, 
and creates the disturbance between the Free and Slave States 



1860] MB. O'CONORS EXTRAVAGANT VIEWS. 471 

that we now witness. Genuine Democracy holds to the doctrine 
of the equal rights of man, and regards this government as estab- 
lished to illustrate and vindicate that principle — not to vindicate 
it too hastily or too eagerly, where great obstructions exist, but 
nevertheless fully and surely and faithfully. American Democ- 
racy has never urged the unconditional overthrow of slavery 
without reference to time and circumstances. But it always has 
looked upon its ultimate removal from the republic as an inevit- 
able consequence of the lapse of time and the progress of events. 
Just at what time or in what way it has never undertaken to 
decide, even speculatively. But that the result was somehow 
and at some time to take place it has never doubted, and this 
confident expectation has always made it tolerant of the presence 
of the great anomaly in our system. Its hostility to it, however, 
becomes naturally and necessarily active when it is told that its 
own principles are unsound and must be revised and reversed, 
and that slavery must be accepted as a permanent and beneficent 
institution. Hence have arisen our present complications, and 
hence the present conflict between the two sections of the Con- 
federacy. 

The relief from this embarrassment is not to be found, as Mr. 
O' Conor supposes, in asserting the excellence and justice of sla- 
very, because that declaration arouses endless hostility and war, 
and creates a perpetual struggle for domination between con- 
tending forces. But it is to be found in the repudiation of this 
doctrine, and in the position that, whether slavery be an evil or 
no, it must be left to the discretion and control of those local 
communities in which it exists. It is neither a rational nor a los:- 
ical view of the case to say that the States of the Federal Gov- 
ernment outside of these localities are in any way responsible for 
it. And neither Mr. O' Conor nor Mr. Garrison, and the radical 
Abolitionists with whom he agrees on this point, will ever con- 
vince men of simple common-sense in the Free States that they 
have any responsibility in the premises. 

The only way out of existing strife, therefore, is not that 
pointed out by Mr. O' Conor, which tend to its perpetuation, 
but lies in directly the opposite direction. Slavery must be left 
exactly where the founders of the government and the framers 
of the Constitution found it and left it ; and that is as an excep- 



472 MB. RAYMOND AT ALBANY. [Jan. 

tional anomalous institution which time and circumstances are to 
rid us of, and which, meantime, is to be tolerated where it exists, 
except so far as the people on the spot refuse to tolerate it, and 
which, above all, is to be spread nowhere else. On this basis 
there is no necessary conflict whatever between the North and 
South, no necessity of rewriting history, none of revising and 
reversing the opinions of the best and wisest men in all ages, 
none of crushing the spontaneous sentiments of humanity that 
rise instinctively in every breast, none of denying the rights of 
man, or repudiating the exactions of morality and Christianity, 
none of ignoring or denying the justice of the Almighty. 

These are some of the slight difficulties that Mr. 0' Conor has 
to contend against on his hypothesis, that are entirely sur- 
mounted by adhering to the faith of the fathers, and regarding 
slavery as an evil to be abridged, and not as a blessing to be ex- 
tended and perpetuated. 



MR. RAYMOND AT ALBANY. 

[From the New York Tribune of January 17.] 

The Hon. H. J. Raymond has given us another screed of 
several columns in length on the medication of the sick and suf- 
fering Union. We hardly know from its perusal just what he is 
at at present. The performance would seem to be purely that 
of an amateur, to pass away time or fill a hiatus. Since his last, 
the distinguished practitioner has grown homoeopathic. While 
he makes the case of his patient a great deal worse, he makes his 
dose a great deal smaller than before. He enlarges the wound 
and contracts the plaster at the same time. Indeed, he even 
goes so far as to declare this time that his patient is stone dead. 
But like quacks who profess unbounded faith in their own speci- 
fics, he believes he can fetch him to notwithstanding. By what 
simple process we shall see in the sequel. 

Mr. Eaymond declares distinctly and unqualifiedly that this 
Union is no better off than the Pemberton Mills — in fact, that 
it is just as completely smashed. He furnishes, however, 
another strange specimen of waywardness or indistinctness of 
conception, similar to what we referred to on a former occasion. 



1860] MR. RAYMOND AS A DOCTOR. 473 

He first speaks of the ' ' extreme improbability of the catastro- 
phe" of the dissolution of the Union, and directly afterwards 
proceeds to lay down, as the fundamental proposition of his dis- 
course, that ' ' the Union is already dissolved, and the question 
we have to consider is, how it may be re-established. ' ' When a 
doctor thus begins by telling us that his patient is dead, but that 
this little circumstance makes no particular difference with him 
as to his treatment of the case, we naturally conclude that he 
must be a prodigious fellow, or — something that shall be name- 
less. 

The next step our ./Esculapius takes in this case is to make a 
post-mortem examination, and tell us what his patient died of. 
This we consider a superfluous task, performed, too, with a pro- 
voking tardiness toward the friends of the deceased, who are 
anxiously awaiting the process of resuscitation. But we cannot 
hurry our Doctor, and must follow him through his own ways. 
He says the cause of this dissolution is to be attributed to the 
'" direct action of the Abolitionists — to the manner in which that 
action has affected political parties in the North, and to the man- 
ner in which it has been resisted by the Southern States." 
Now it would appear unseemly to engage in a controversy over 
a dead body in respect of the cause of his untimely end, although 
we presume it would be strictly professional. We shall therefore 
merely dissent from the foregoing diagnosis, though of course in 
the most modest manner. We think that the optics of any dis- 
sector must be remarkably keen who can trace any connection 
between the action of the " Northern Abolitionists" and the re- 
peal of the Missouri Compromise ; that one flagrant, unprovoked, 
and most comprehensive measure, which is the distinct and ac- 
knowledged source and origin of the Kepublican party, of the 
existing attitude of our domestic politics, and also of the raid of 
John Brown ; the one great event that has so lately convulsed 
Southern politicians and brought about these very Union meet- 
ings on which Dr. Eaymond gives gratuitous professional at- 
tendance. We never heard it even hinted before that the " di- 
rect action of the Northern Abolitionists" prompted Pierce and 
Douglas to start the repeal of this Missouri Compromise, thus 
prolific of existing ills and agitations. We always had supposed, 
on the contrary, that the reason for that repeal was to be found 



474 MR. RAYMOND'S PATIENT. [Jan. 

in the belief of those gentlemen and others of their doughface as- 
sociates, that this very " abolitionism " had been " crushed out." 
We remember very distinctly to have heard that little gentleman y 
of whom Mr. Benton used to say he wore his coat-tail too near 
the ground ever to be President, make the observation, in 1854, 
in reply to a remark that the projected repeal was a bold experi- 
ment upon popular forbearance : "Not at all," said Mr. Doug- 
las, " not at all, it is perfectly safe ; this is a nigger era." This 
was said in reference to the triumphant passage and indorsement 
of the compromise measures of 1850, followed by the overwhelm- 
ing success of Pierce in the presidential election, and by the 
perfect lull on the slavery question which then prevailed through- 
out the country. The cause of our present disorders thus arose 
from a conviction that "abolitionism" had been effectually 
quelled and demolished, and that it was thus safe to venture 
on any outrage upon the anti-slavery sentiment of the North, 
and not from any spirit like that exhibited and acknowledged by 
Mr. Calhoun in his taking of Texas. Herein the Hon. Mr. Ray- 
mond manifests a want of precision of idea and a great lack of 
political penetration, such as is often seen in attempts to gen- 
eralize from a series of historical transactions that have only an 
apparent connection. He fails to discriminate between totally 
different classes of events ; and, with equal simplicity and shal- 
lowness, classes them under one general head, and draws his 
conclusions therefrom in a heap ; thus landing in a mere mass of 
absurdity. We have not room here to devote to the evidently 
very necessary enlightenment of Mr. Raymond's mind on this 
subject, and we can only advise him not to venture upon public 
elucidations of these topics while his own understanding is in 
such a fog in regard to them. Thus much in regard to the dis- 
ease Dr. Raymond's patient died of. 

Our orator and physician now turns his attention to other dis- 
orders which he has discovered in the corpus under examination. 
He discourses at length about the fugitive slave law, and about 
personal liberty bills, but his remarks on this head are all point- 
no-point. It is all, They did and they didn't through a column. 
The Doctor, though he claims to deal in specifics, is not at all 
specific himself. He winds round and round and in and out like 
a man following a deer's beat in a deep snow, and finally comes. 



1860] DOCTOR RAYMOND'S SPECIFIC. 475 

out at the same place where he went in. Mr. Raymond does 
not tell us in any precise way how this should be or should have 
been. "We suggested to him last week that the right of trial by 
jury, applied to the fugitive slave bill, was the true and com- 
prehensive and full solution of all questions and discussions on 
this disturbing topic. To all which he is blind and deaf, and 
merely talks and talks and talks very much in the same lugu- 
brious manner that Sam Cowell represents Lord Lovell to have 
"rode and rode and rode," on his way to Lady Nancy Bell's 
funeral. 

But enough on this head. "We hasten to unfold the crown- 
ing act proposed by our distinguished professor of political re- 
surrection. But, like the actor who reserves his best part for his 
benefit night, Mr. Raymond holds his great secret and panacea 
back for exhibition at the State capital ; and, as if feeling that 
it was too powerful in its character and too miraculously effica- 
cious in its nature and essence to be wasted on any subject with 
the breath of life in its body, he only consents to produce it after 
all sense is fled, all vitality gone, all life extinct. Having de- 
clared that ' ' the Union is already dissolved, and the only ques- 
tion we have to consider is how it may be re-established," he 
slowly, solemnly, deliberately, and dramatically comes before his 
audience, the country, and the world, with his celebrated resusci- 
tation process. Our readers must by this time be impatient to 
behold it, analyze it, and see it applied. Here it is. We assure our 
readers that Dr. ' Raymond prepares his hearers for the great 
secret with much more solemnity than we can excite by our 
tame exposition. Dr. Raymond says — we quote from the pho- 
nographic report of the Atlas and Argus : 

" I think the way out of the difficulties in which the country is involved 
lies in the recognition of the fact that, whether Slavery in the Southern 
States is right or wrong, we have no responsibility for it, and no right what- 
ever to interfere with it. Let the North take this ground and the Union 
may be preserved" [restored to life]. 

That is it, reader, the whole of it. That is Dr. Raymond's 
specific, panacea, remedy, and resuscitator-general for this once 
glorious but now defunct Union ! 

It is no fault of ours if our article has no climax. If the 
Doctor falls we must descend with him. It is the fate of com- 



470 A DILETTANTI POLITICIAN. [Jan. 

mentators not to rise above the level of their subject. That we 
have soared with the ex-Lieutenant- Governor only to, be finally 
precipitated into a morass is our misfortune, not our fault. 

Being down, however, we have a parting word. Mr. Ray- 
mond quotes after-dinner facetiae of his quondam political 
friends as serious declarations, and aims to use such material 
against the party whose volunteer exponent he was in 1856, and 
whose candidate for United States Senator he was not in 1857. 
We submit that this violation of the confidences of private inter- 
course was not to be presumed of a gentleman even as hard 
pushed as he was to make out a case against the party he had 
abandoned. 



GEORGE WOOD. 
[From the New York Tribune of January 18.] 

Mr. George Wood, a retired politician of the old Whig 
party, thus dawdles into the political ring in a recent letter to the 
public in general. We do not know that it makes any difference 
to any mortal man beside Mr. Wood himself what George 
Wood's political opinions are, but he evidently thinks them fit 
for public use. It isn't necessary to go through his letter, of 
which the following paragraph gives the keynote. After saying 
that slavery is good as well as bad, he gives as a reason for an 
apology for its establishment : 

"Experience has shown that the black race, accustomed to slavery, will 
not work when free, especially in a climate which relaxes and enervates the 
faculties, and which renders them indolent." 

Well, Mr. Wood, suppose this is true (which by the way we 
deny), whose business is it ? Is it yours ? Are you a vicegerent 
of the Almighty, placed on earth to set everybody to work who 
thinks he finds his happiness in being idle ? Suppose Cuffee and 
Sambo, as Mr. Carlyle calls them, won't work ? Is it your busi- 
ness or Mr. Carlyle 's business to load them with chains and 
scourge them to the fields ? Whence comes your right to do this ? 
You, sir, have no authority whatever to dictate to men what 
they shall do or shall not do, when those men have been guilty 
of no crime except having a color not like your own, and when 



1860] MR. ARNY A WILLING WITNESS. 477 

they have intrusted you with no legal power to exercise control 
over them. Perhaps Cuffee and Sambo might retort the com- 
pliment, and thinking Mr. George "Wood would do better in 
some other employment than in practising law, might some day 
conclude to transfer him to a rice swamp. What would Mr. 
Wood think of that ? It would not be one whit a greater wrong 
or a more insufferable impudence in Cuffee and Sambo to flog Mr. 
Wood into a rice swamp in Carolina, than for him to scourge 
Cuffee and Sambo on a sugar plantation in Louisiana. Perhaps 
the subject has never presented itself to our letter- writer in this 
novel aspect. Suppose you revolve it in your mind a little, Mr. 
Wood, and try and find out whence you derived your personal 
rights, and whence Cuffee and Sambo may be violently sup- 
posed to have got theirs. 



INVESTIGATING ARNT. 

[From the New York Tribune of January 20.] 

The Senatorial Committee on John Brown (alas ! that Mason 
and Vallandigham should have so signally failed to pump the 
old Roman dry at Harper's Ferry) have been industriously at 
their labors for some days. They are just now investigating Mr. 
Arny, of Kansas. Mr. Amy is very willing to tell all he knows 
in regard to Kansas, John Brown, Harper's Ferry, and every 
subject in any way connected therewith. But it is reported from 
Washington that Mr. Arny persists in telling too much. For- 
getful of that most common of all injunctions to witnesses, to 
tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, our 
Senatorial Committee insist on stopping Mr. Arny in the midst 
of his most interesting revelations. He desires to tell his story, 
to disclose all he knows in regard to the subject on which the 
Committee is instructed to act. But we are told that the Com- 
mittee keep saying, " That will do, Mr. Arny ;" " You need not 
pursue that topic, Mr. Arny ; " " We do not wish to hear anything 
on that head, Mr. Arny ;" "Why will you say what we do not 
wish to hear, Mr. Arny ?" " Will you please to quit talking, Mr. 
Arny ?" " Arny, shut up ;" " Arny, stop. " This we are assured 
is substantially the way in which this willing witness, Mr. Arny, is 



478 A CROWD OF BORDER RUFFIANS. [Jan. 

treated. Now, we beg to know if it is in this mode that information 
is to be elicited fit for a Senatorial Committee to prepare, and for 
that grave body whose representative it is to consider ? Why not 
let Mr. Amy tell the whole truth ? He is evidently no knife - 
grinder who has no story to tell, though it is by no means so clear 
that some of the Committee are not nearly related to that pro- 
fession, and have not some very dull axes of their own to grind. 
"We entreat, let Mr. Arny go on and say his say. We desire to 
know what it is. We are ignorant, and our readers are ignorant, 
as the babe unborn of the facts connected with this Harper's 
Ferry business, except the statements that have from time to 
time got into the newspapers since the arrest of Captain Brown. 
Our subscription list attests that they were considered very en- 
tertaining reading, and we are selfishly interested, if in no other 
way, in having every thing for, against, precedent, contemporary, 
subsequent, near or remote brought out into the open daylight. 
Let us know about those Sharp's rifles that Mr. Arny says he 
can tell more about if the Committee will only let him ; where 
they came from, and what was done with them, and with o f her 
formidable instruments at Black Jack and Osawatomie and 
elsewhere. There are plenty of people beside our readers who 
would be deeply interested in this kind of reading. It would 
please Atchison, Pate, Buford, Stringfellow, and others pro- 
digiously, and a whole crowd of border ruffians beside, in Mis- 
souri especially and elsewhere as well. 

We really trust the Committee will not disappoint our 
reasonable but ardent expectations, nor wilfully balk our hopes. 
We shall take it ill if they do. We have a right to expect in- 
formation through this Committee, if we may look for it any 
where. Let us have an investigation as is an investigation, Mr. 
Mason, and not one got up like your slavery discussions in Vir- 
ginia, all on one side. Gentlemen of the Committee, will you 
please to let Mr. Arny talk ? And then will you bring on the 
Hon. Mr. Yallandigham, of Ohio, and let him tell what he 
pumped out of old Captain Brown while he was lying faint and 
bloody on a stone floor at Harper's Ferry ? We are afraid that 
we did not have a good report of what that smart and candid M. 
C. did on that occasion. 



1860] LETTER FROM I. WASHBURN, JR. 479 

[From Hon. I. Washburn, Jr.] 

Washington, January 25, 1860. 

Dear Pike : "Want of penetration !" "By the Lord, I knew 
ye !" but as I had been told that you were coming to Washington 
about this time, I supposed Greeley would be most likely to get the 
letter, and I desired mainly to thank the Tribune. 

Tom Corwin has made a six hours' speech, wise and witty, a little 
pro-slavery, a good deal anti-slavery, but quite likely to bring out twenty 
speeches on the two sides, and not unlikely in the end to elect a Demo- 
cratic Speaker, and certain to make the country hold the Republicans 
responsible for the non-organization ; i.e., responsible to a considerable 
extent. Only think, a six hours' speech on all subjects under the sun 
addressed to the clerk, and this in rebuke of those Republicans who 
have labored all these weeks to bring the House to its duty, and prevent 
speaking on our side ! 

Are you for Edward Bates for President ? A categorical answer 
requested. Yours truly, I. Washburn, Jr. 



THE LONDON TIMES AND SLAVERY. 
[From the New York Tribune of January 28.] 

Our English cousins are very kind and obliging. They fre- 
quently undertake to enlighten us in the most luminous and 
magnanimous manner. Some astute writer in the leading col- 
umns of the London Thunderer, in a tone of lofty condescension, 
propounds and disposes of the slavery question in a manner that 
leaves nothing more to be said or done on the subject. Whether 
this writer be young or old we do not know. That he is grassy 
green we can attest. He says, in an essay which we copied en- 
tire a few days ago : 

" That the harshness of masters in the Southern States maybe lessened, 
that the slaves may receive education and moral instruction, and that ulti- 
mately slavery may be changed into a system by which the colored race shall 
enjoy personal liberty and the legal rights which are necessary for the pres- 
ervation of life and property, we most heartily desire ; but any thing fur- 
ther we cannot join in seeking." 

The -writer appears to think that the people of the Free 
States are just now demanding something more than this whole- 
sale scheme of freeing the entire slave population, which, he says, 



480 THE LONDON TIMES ON SLAVERY. [Jan. 

is all that should be asked. That such ignorance should find its- 
way into the leading columns of the London Times is something 
to amaze those who look there for at least a fair measure of in- 
telligence on the topics it discusses. 

What will this philanthropic writer, who aims apparently to 
throw his influence in favor of allaying the imaginary national 
disturbance created here by the John Brown panic, say when he 
is told that, instead of the people of the Free States asking more 
than he verdantly expresses his willingness to yield, those people 
are not seeking the overthrow of slavery at all where it now ex- 
ists ? They, or that maligned portion of them who profess to be- 
lieve freedom to be better than slavery, are simply objecting to 
the further spread of the institution over unoccupied territory 
within the Union, and to the acquisition of slave-holding countries- 
lying outside the Union. The pervading anti-slavery sentiment 
of the North, over which our orators and negro-spreading news- 
papers so constantly and so dismally caterwaul, making day and 
night hideous, and which is represented by the Republican party; 
hath this extent, no more. It wars primarily, mainly, and we 
may say exclusively, against the further spread of this detestable 
institution. Of course the war involves the exposition of the 
intrinsic character of slavery and of its character and influence in 
the United States ; and thus it ramifies into extensive relations. 
But as a political or social movement, it goes not an inch beyond 
the limits we have indicated. We think it would be well for 
the London Times to try and understand the position of political 
affairs in this country before it ventures on further expositions. 
Otherwise it will throw light on nothing but its own dense ig- 
norance, as in the article from which we make the above extract. 

There are a handful of Abolitionists in this country, and al- 
ways have been at any time these thirty years, who oppose sla- 
very purely on moral grounds, and who aim directly at its over- 
throw in the States where it exists. But they do not form a 
political party, and are professedly non-resistants and non -voters. 
Their numbers are really inappreciable among the great mass of 
American citizens. John Brown, after his experience in Kansas 
represented the peculiar anti-slavery ideas of this party, but he 
acted in total opposition to their methods. He embodied in his 
own person also every other form of hostility to the institution,, 



1860] JEFF DAVIS ON DISUNION. 481 

and boldly flung himself at the head of twenty-one like-minded 
men against it. But in this rash act he went counter to the ideas 
not only of our radical Abolitionists, but against those of all 
other anti-slavery men in the country. And we are free to 
avow our conviction that while every generous-hearted or clear- 
headed man must sympathize with the wonderful traits of char- 
acter exhibited by Brown, yet of all parties in this country that 
could be mustered against slavery Brown's would be the smallest. 
As yet there is no insurrectionary party in the country, and out- 
rageous and provoking as has been and continues to be the con- 
duct of the Slave States in maltreating, imprisoning, lynching, 
and driving out peaceable citizens of other States, and terrible as 
the treatment of slaves sometimes is, nobody anywhere has ever 
yet proposed the awful resort of exciting insurrection, either by 
way of revenge for outrages, or by way of relief for the en- 
slaved. Even John Brown, whose views were more nearly those 
of an insurrectionist than those any other man has ever mani- 
fested, would deny, were he living, that he had any such design. 
It is our judgment that if every voter in the Free States were 
called upon, one by one, to know if he approved John Brown's 
method of getting rid of slavery, not one in a thousand would be 
found to acknowledge that he did. And yet the commentators 
upon our affairs in the London Times would seem to take it for 
granted that Brown's method is the accepted style of dealing 
with slavery in vogue throughout the Free States. So long as 
the Times continues to consider the New York Herald a trusty 
exponent of the ideas prevalent in political and other circles in 
this country, so long will it continue to fall into stupendous 
blunders like this. 



JEFFERSON DAVIS ON DISUNION. 
[From the New York Tribune of January 31.] 



We publish elsewhere a colloquy that occurred in the Senate 
on Thursday last between Senators Davis and Fessenden, in re- 
gard to the position which the former holds on the subject of the 
election of a Republican President, on which there has been so 
much gasconade in the other branch of Congress. We make our 



482 MR. FESSENDEN ON AN INQUIRY. [Jan. 

extract from the official record, namely, the columns of the 
Washington Globe. 

Mr. Davis is one of the contingent candidates of the bogus 
Democracy for President. Of course he has to be more guarded 
in his utterances than those whose time has passed by for that 
honor, or who know it will never come. When one of either of 
these classes gets the floor we have unbounded extravagance of 
assertion and declamation. They scold and rant and bluster 
and threaten and throw oil windy explosions at a prodigious 
rate. The numerous examples of this sort of thing in the 
House, that have been constantly occurring ever since the as- 
sembling of Congress, have sufficiently illustrated the factious 
temper and traitorous declarations of Southern Democrats. It 
is an object to know if any of the gentlemen who stand in the 
category of possible candidates for the Charleston nomination are 
ready to back these declarations. Mr. Davis, in his answer at 
first, was quite exj)licit in saying that if a moderate Republican, 
like Mr. Foote, of Vermont, for example, should be chosen by 
the Republicans, he would not regard it as a reason for secession. 
But he afterward qualified the admission, as he was pressed by 
Mr. Fessenden, so as finally to leave his position open to a 
double interpretation. As his exposition stood at the close, his 
disunion-threatening friends could claim him to be on their side ; 
and yet it could be proved to the anti-disunion masses of the 
people of the Free States, on his statement, that he was no kind 
of a disunion ist whatever on the point in question. 

The real truth of the matter is, that nothing is meant by all 
the blustering and bullying on the question, except to try to in- 
timidate the North from voting as the masses of the people are 
inclined to vote. Mr. Davis came very near pricking the whole 
bubble by his frank admission made at the start. But finding it 
would not do to leave his more open-mouthed supporters and con- 
federates so suddenly in the lurch, he laboriously and smokily 
qualified his original expression. 



[From Hon. I. Washburn, Jr.] 

Washington, January 31, 1860. 
My Dear Pike : I am rejoiced to hear you talk so sensibly. I am 
for Pitt, and hope onr State will be for him in good faith, and secure 



1860] LETTER FROM 1. WASHBURN, JR. 483 

his nomination. But if, after all, this cannot be done, I am for Seward. 
No indiscriminate admirer of the governor, I cannot forget how much 
he has done for the great cause, how brave and logical have been his 
words, nor the trials and struggles of the last eight years in this Gol- 
gotha. May Maine be firmly and honestly for Fessenden ; but let her Dot 
be used to defeat not alone her noble son, but every genuine Republican. 

I have no doubt that you are entirely right in your apprehen- 
sions that there is a deep, widely extended, and formidable movement 
to nominate Bates, or some one like him, and to this fact, in my honest 
opinion, is it due that John Sherman was not elected Speaker weeks ago. 
The effect of electing our first and only candidate, and a Helper signer, 
after all the clamor made on that subject, was seen, and it was also sur- 
mised what would be the argument if, driven from a straight Republican 
nominee, a non-Helper, non-representative candidate should be chosen. 
Hence sundry diversions from Sherman to South Americans, hinting to 
the Democrats to hold on and our line would break soon. Hence the 
movements of at least one Bates man, who professes strong Republican- 
ism, of whom I may speak hereafter. Sherman permitted the campaign 
to be directed in the main by these men, and was persuaded by them to 
favor the diversions I have referred to, or some of them, and to make 
what I regard as unfortunate speeches. There is not, that I know of, a 
single correspondent here who has understood the ground we were 
travelling, or who, if he understood it, has not been laboring in the 
interest of the ' ' opposition' ' party rather than of the Republican party. 

"With our " Peck" of troubles in Maine, and anybody for the Re- 
publican nominee who is not a live and true Republican, we shall have 
a campaign such as I hope not to be obliged to labor in, and which 
would not promise the most happy results. 

Put us on the defensive, set us to explaining and apologizing, give 
us a candidate of whom we only know that he is an old line Whig and 
never a Republican, and the canvass will be the hardest we ever had. 

When are you coming on ? 

Yours truly, I. Washburn, Jr. 

J. S. Pike, Esq. 



[From Fitz-Henry Warren.] 

Burlington, Iowa, February 2, 1860. 

Particular Pike : The ills of a congested liver, brought on by 

attempting to decipher a letter of the First of the Tribunes, addressed to 

me from Galesburg, 111., have been much assuaged by your comforting 

letter of the 29th of January. When I look at a bald head, I expect to 



484 LETTER FROM F1TZ-HENRY WARREN. [Feb. 

find under its polished surface good sense. Horace is an exceptional 
case. I am glad you agree with me about Edward Bates. I have no 
doubt Blair is right about him (Bates). He is with us in sentiment 
and sympathy. But, in the language of Daniel the Dark, " What is all 
this worth" for a President ? For a church-warden or a congrega- 
tional deacon I should be for him, with both hands up. What business 
have we to nominate and elect a man President who has never been in 
political life, who has no taste for politics, and no personal knowledge of 
public men ? If I had had any room for a favorable impression of his 
qualities beyond my slight acquaintance with him, Peter Parley's in- 
dorsement would finish it out. The paper was bad enough before, as. 
the bank president said, " but with that indorsement it is not worth a 
d — n." For God's sake let us look to life and not to resurrection for 
our success in '60. I go in for electing ; but why go into the bowels 
of Niggerdom for a candidate ? If you can carry Missiouri for Bates, 
you can carry Arkansas for him ; and you can lift yourself up by the 
waistband daily for ten years before you can do either. The King of 
Terrors has a large work to do in Missouri before any Republican can- 
didate can touch bottom there. I pray to be spared the anguish of 
voting for any man who can get this electoral vote. 

With regard to the governor, the slender chance he had has gone 
out with John Sherman. Possibly you know what we have gained by 
electing old Pennington ; I don't. I would far rather have been beaten 
with E. than to have backed down from him. I am consoled somewhat 
that it was not Corwin. 

Pitt Fessenden would make a President after my own heart. But 
he is too near the " open Polar sea." Uncle Dan's telescope could 
not discern the North Star, and your feeble lens can hardly reach 
it. If he lived in Iowa, or Greeley's paradise of bullfrogs, Indiana, he 
might come in ; but we can't go into the tall timber of Maine. The 
question now recurs on the original question, " Who are you (I) for ?" 
I am for the man who can carry Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and In- 
diana, with this reservation, that I will not go into cemetery or cata- 
comb ; the candidate must be alive, and able to walk at least from 
parlor to dining-room. I am willing to take the opinions of the dele- 
gates from those States on this point. But if the choice is to be be- 
tween King Stork and King Log, count me in for the former. I had 
rather have a President who would take me by the nape of the neck and 
kick me down stairs, than to have one who would smile me out with 
the hypocritical leer of that greatest of all nuisances in the White 
House, Millard Fillmore. 

Very truly, Fitz-Henrv Warren. 



1860] FITZ-HENRY WARREN'S HUMOR. 485 

[From Fitz-Henry Warren.] 

Burlington, Iowa, February 6, I860. 

James : I send you a published letter of an aged gentleman, tbe 
sauds of whose political life are nearly run out. The style, as you can- 
not fail to notice, is copied from Washington's Farewell Address : some 
may think it superior to that outlawed production. Mr. Dana is not to 
be permitted to read it unless his family physician is present, with burnt 
brandy and smelling salts. Since Horace " saw visions and dreamed 
dreams" out here in the land of divine inspiration, the contents, per- 
haps, may be broken to him gently. 

Do tell me, confidentially, if Fremont will probably be the nominee. 
Mule-steaks can now be got cheap, and I wish to lay in a stock for the 
campaign. 

I see the Tribune " squawks" a little over the committees. It was 
a very glorious victory, that election of Speaker. By the way, why don't 
you bring out Winter Davis for President ? After the action of the 
Maryland legislature I think there is no doubt of his getting that elec- 
toral vote. Dana and Ripley appear to be quite well thought of down 
in Mississippi. Will one of them consent to take the nomination of 
Vice ? That would take Mississippi, certain. With a pledge to make 
Helper Secretary of State we could bag North Carolina. In that case I 
shall insist on having Mr. Randall, of Philadelphia, Secretary of War ; 
being in the " conservative zone" that would be all right. But I 
weary you. Adieu. 

Fitz-Henry Warren. 

Is Henry C. Carey temporal or eternal — " a spirit of health or a 
goblin damned ?" 



[From Hon. Benjamin Stanton.] 

Washington, February 11, 1860. 
J. S. Pike, Esq. 

Dear Sir : Yours of yesterday is received. Many thanks for your 
kindness in saving me from another assault in the Tribune. 

I see from the Tribune of yesterday that you suppose there was 
some unbecoming altercation between Mr. Colfax and myself in the 
House. This is a great mistake. There are no two members of the 
House whose personal relations are more kind and cordial than Mr. 
Colfax's and my own. I of course felt the awkwardness of my position 
in opposing the election of a candidate nominated by a caucus in which 
I participated. To break the force of an anticipated attack on that 



480 ASSAULT ON A MEMBER OF CONGRESS. [Feb. 

ground I referred to the vote of the friends of Mr. Defrees, and espe- 
cially Mr. Colfax, in 1856. I probably acted indiscreetly in doing so. 
Mr. Colfax exhibited a little feeling in his reply, but subsequent ex- 
planations have removed every trace of it, and our former amicable 
relations are fully and completely restored. 

Yours, etc., B. Stanton. 



THE ASSAULT ON MR. HICKMAN. 
[From the New York Tribune of February 13.] 

There is a class of Southern men, belonging pretty exclusively, 
so far as we can judge, to what is facetiously denominated the 
Democratic party, who seem to believe in bullying and terror- 
ism as appropriate influences for the conduct of public affairs and 
for the usual intercourse of society. Ever since the memorable 
year of 1854, these persons have attempted the introduction of 
their tactics into the national councils. They began by decry- 
ing the spirit of the Northern people, terming them cowardly 
Abolitionists, incendiary poltroons, who must be whipped into 
subjection. They acted upon the supposition that a few armed 
bands of assassins in Washington and in Kansas would stop Con- 
gressional discussion of the slavery question, and would convert 
Kansas and all the rest of our Territories into Slave States. 

They commenced operations on this theory. "We have seen 
what we have seen in Washington, and what we have seen in 
Kansas. The House of Representatives has had more than one 
melee since, and has exhibited on the Northern side but small 
disposition to retreat before the bullies. But the full develop- 
ment of the deliberately challenged contest between Free-State 
men and Slave-State men has only been seen in Kansas. What 
the result has been there the world knows, and particularly that 
part of it embraced in the Slave States. The South know, and 
we are willing to take their testimony of the fighting capacity 
of the " cowardly Abolitionists," who went from the North to 
make that Territory a Free State. They found it in possession of 
the assassins and bullies, and they have either driven out or ex- 
tinguished the whole crew. The fact is not only illustrated in 
general by the triumphant success of Northern men in making 
Kansas a Free State, but in highly significant minor details. 



1860] A MISSOURI SLAVE-HUNTER. 487 

We saw a narrative the other day in a Missouri paper directly 
in point. Half a dozen slave-hunters from Missouri pursued a 
fugitive into Kansas. While at a tavern on their journey some 
Free-State men of the Territory rode up, bringing with them the 
fugitive of whom the slave-hunters were in quest. The slave 
was introduced to his master on terms of equality, and bade to 
enter into a conference with him. He did so. After some 
friendly observations on the slave's part, his master was in- 
formed that Sambo had concluded not to return to Missouri, but 
was bound to Canada, and as his hat was minus a crown and 
rim, and his coat shabby and ragged, his master was invited to 
exchange with him, which he cheerfully did. Sambo being thus 
well furnished, so far as apparel was concerned, his old master 
was persuaded to lend him money enough to defray his expenses 
to the Canaan of the colored man's hopes, and also to furnish 
him his horse to lessen the fatigues of his journey. 

These arrangements being completed the two parted. The 
colored man in his improved attire went North, and the slave- 
owner and his friends back to their homes, wiser if not richer 
than they came. The pro-slavery journal from which we de- 
rived the foregoing facts, after condemning the action of the 
Free-State men, remarked that the denuded slave-owner was a law- 
and-order man, and would take no steps in the way of reprisals. 

This story carries its own moral. It shows what the South- 
ern assassins and bullies have done in quelling the " cowardly 
Abolitionists" of Kansas, as the Northern men who went to 
make that Territory a Free State used to be so volubly termed. 
It is an incident that shows, or may show, the bullies and assassins 
that, in hanging John Brown and some of his confederates, and 
slaying others after they were made prisoners, they have only cut 
off the advance-guard of the Kansas Free-State men. There are 
plenty more left of the same sort. 

Virginia, Mr. Edmundson, Mr. Keitt, and Mr. Vice-President 
Breckinridge have some acquaintance — at least by hearsay — with 
Captain Brown, of North Elba, more familiarly known as Old 
Brown, of Osawatomie. They have heard, perhaps, of the diffi- 
culties in Kansas, and how the Free- State men bore themselves 
in numerous desperate conflicts. They may have heard that 
Kansas is likely to become a Free State, and if they have, it may 



488 PBOVOKING REVENGES. [Feb. 

also have crept into their ears by what means. They must have 
some knowledge brought direct from Kansas, by their own 
friends and confederates, that the Southern scheme of bullying 
and assassination has failed in that Territory. From all this in- 
formation and other enlightenment, derived from reading and re- 
flection, they must by this time, if they are men of half the brains 
possessed by their slaves, have come to the conclusion that bully- 
ing and assassination will not work for any length of time in 
dealing with Free-State men in Kansas, in Washington, or else- 
where. 

We are thus at a loss to understand the assault of those gentle- 
men upon Mr. Hickman, of Pennsylvania, on Friday last. Do 
they want to reopen the physical contest provoked in Kansas 
in the streets of Washington ? Do they desire to reorganize bul- 
lying and assassination at the federal capital ? If they do, they 
can certainly achieve their purpose. And if they do, it needs no 
ghost to prophesy that their scheme will be more promptly met 
than it could have been at any former period in the history of 
this government. Do they doubt that the constituencies of 
Free-State representatives have men among them who would 
be only too glad to go down to Washington and defend and 
avenge these representatives ? Does any such doubt exist after 
their reading of the history of Kansas, of John Brown and his 
twenty-one fighting confederates ? 

But whatever their design, such assaults as this on Mr. Hick- 
man tend only to provoke just such revenges as the history of 
Kansas and John Brown have already developed and are yet 
developing, and it is amazing that the Southern men do not see 
it. This assault upon Mr. Hickman, a man of weak frame and 
feeble health, a gentleman who distinctly signified to the House 
the other day that he could not be provoked or forced to recog- 
nize the assassin code of the South — this assault upon such a 
man is one of the most inexcusably atrocious acts, in purpose, 
that we have been for a long time called to record. If a deed 
of cowardice can be perpetrated, is not this one ? Here are con- 
federated assailants, each unquestionably armed — for Southern 
men generally go armed — and always when on missions like this, 
attacking an unarmed man incapable of defending himself, and 
ready to assassinate him if he attempts defence. We consider 



1860] SENATOR BRODERICK'S OBSEQUIES. 489 

the attack, so far as evident purpose goes, equalled only by the 
brutal and murderous assault on Senator Sumner. It is a class 
of acts of which only bullies and assassins can be guilty. 

J. S. P. 



BEODEEICK IN CONGEESS. 
[From the New York Tribune of February 14.] 

The House of Representatives adjourned early yesterday, 
after taking two indecisive ballots for Printer, and going through 
with the obsequies of Senator Broderick. Mr. Morris, of Illi- 
nois, was pointed in his closing observations on the death of the 
senator in saying that more than one will be found answering at 
the final roll-call for him, "Am I my brother's keeper ?" No 
doubt many are as guilty of Broderick's murder, in the eye of 
Eternal Justice, as the assassin who aimed the fatal bullet. 

The proceedings in the Senate were marked by unusual cir- 
cumstances. Mr. Foster, of Connecticut, very properly and 
very manfully expressed his doubts of the propriety of paying the 
usual testimonials of respect to Mr. Broderick's memory, on the 
ground that he fell in a duel in violation of the laws of God and 
man. For this reason, therefore, he proposed to withhold his 
vote for the resolutions of respect, though entertaining a high 
regard for the manly qualities of the deceased senator. 

Mr. Toombs took exception to this natural and eminently 
proper expression of Mr. Foster's sentiments. He seemed to 
regard it as some sort of a personal imputation on him that a man 
who had no regard for the laws of God or man should be thought 
unworthy of senatorial honors in his obsequies. It was natural that 
Mr. Toombs should express the feelings he did, if he thought he 
was sure to die a senator. But he should remember that the chances 
are against his demise in this capacity, and therefore he might 
have restrained his impetuosity. Mr. Toombs need not have 
advertised so officiously his wrath against the Almighty, though 
he may have felt it ever so strongly. His intimations that he 
had a perfect right to disobey the divine commands, and yet 
exact the tribute of respect from his fellow-men, though char- 
acteristic, might yet have been withheld without injury to his 
reputation. We do not suppose that Mr. Toombs's remarks 



490 SENA TOES MASON AND BROWN. [Feb. 

were sharpened by the reflection that he, too, might die the death 
of Broderick, and that in his protest against Mr. Foster's views, 
he was thus casting an anchor to windward, because we cannot 
believe that Mr. Toombs intends to make a fool of himself by 
dying in a fight with any one man, in view of that brilliant de- 
nouement of the temporal career of the whole of us which he in- 
voked the other day, in which he and his Georgia confederates, 
with joined hands clasping the pillars of our national fabric, are 
to drag down the glorious temple of our liberties, and bury govern- 
ment, Senate, Toombs & Co. in the ruins. His advertisement of 
his position on the general subject of revolt against God and man 
was thus quite superfluous. No doubt Mr. Toombs thinks that 
the great brimstone dealer immortalized by Milton was a paragon 
of honor in his rebellion ; but it would be a needless offence to 
good society to propose honors to his character on that account. 
We cannot but think that Mr. Toombs was hardly less happy in 
his demonstration in his reply to Mr. Foster than he would be 
in proposing the devil for a toast. 



NEW CONSTITUTION FOR KANSAS. 
[From the New York Tribune of February 15.] 

The Senate had before them yesterday the new Constitution 
for Kansas. The Hon. Mr. Mason, of Virginia, observed that it 
was impossible for Kansas to be admitted as a State under it, 
inasmuch as there was a law requiring a census to be taken before 
she could apply. The Hon. Mr. Brown, of Mississippi, blandly 
observed that the people of Kansas were guilty of a " criminal 
violation" of the laws of Congress in asking to be admitted as a 
State under the Wyandot Constitution. Is not this a blessed 
pair of worthies ? Both of these gentlemen were red-hot for the 
admission of Kansas long ago under a Constitution that certain 
officious interlopers had made for her. Then this Master Mason 
and this unworthy namesake of the man lately hung in Virginia, 
were fast and furious to have Kansas admitted to the fraternity 
of States. How comes it they have so suddenly changed their 
tune ? If Kansas was fit to come in as a State two years ago, 
why not now ? The reason is only too plain. Then she was to 



1860] ACTIVITY OF TEE SLAVE-TRADE. 491 

come in as a Slave State, but now she desires to come in as a 
Free State. The odds makes the difference. Why have not the 
objectors manliness enough to say so ? Why swell and look big 
and talk about solemn statutes ? Talk about law if you will in 
connection with this Kansas business, but have the grace to fol- 
low the example of Atchison, and admit, with him, that it is 
all "d — poor law." You cannot disguise your real purposes 
and motives, and it is folly to attempt it. After a brief discus- 
sion a characteristic obstruction to the further consideration of 
the subject was suggested by the chair, who stated that he must 
call up the special order — to prohibit the issue of bank-notes under 
twenty dollars in the District of Columbia. After a topic of this 
gigantic importance was started, of course Kansas had to stand 
one side. 



ACTIVITY OF THE SLAVE-TRADE. 
[From the New York Tribune of February 16.] 

The Journal of Commerce bemoans the existing activity of 
the slave-trade, which it admits is now mostly carried on under 
the American flag, and by American vessels having American 
owners. It dawdles over the subject, and laments that so many 
difficulties are in the way of putting an end to this infamous 
traffic. It states that the captured slaver, unless found with his 
cargo on board, " is almost sure to escape in the courts." This 
circumstance, it argues, diminishes the vigilance of our naval 
officers, because in all cases of failure to secure conviction after 
capture they are exposed to vexatious litigation. 

Here we are, then, according to the Journal of Commerce, 
with the slave-trade in full blast directly under our noses, with 
no means of helping ourselves. The slave-traders defy the naval 
power, defy the law, defy the courts, and the Journal of Commerce 
regrets the circumstance. Now we desire to probe this matter a 
little. How does it happen, as the Journal of Commerce asserts, 
that " the captured slaver is almost sure to escape in the courts ?" 
For here, it seems, lies the whole difficulty in breaking up the 
traffic. What is the reason the courts are unable to see a captured 
slaver as easily as such a craft can be seen by those who first suspect, 
then ferret her out, and then make the capture ? We think the 



492 THE REASONS FOR IT [Feb. 

answer is very plain. It is because of the demoralized condition 
of the law-officers of the federal government, judges included. 
It is perfectly well known that this revival of the African slave- 
trade is a new thing altogether. It has all taken place within a 
very few years. Formerly there were no difficulties in the way 
of apprehending and punishing men engaged in the slave-trade. 
When judges were ready to execute the law, and when public 
sentiment was undebauched upon the subject, no American and 
no American ship engaged in the infamous traffic. When the 
tone of our law-makers and its administrators was what it ought 
to be, we heard of none of the execrable scoundrels such as now 
hold up their heads among the respectabilities in this city, who, 
if not openly, are yet secretly understood to be participators in 
this nefarious business. The whole thing has come about in this 
wise. Our Supreme Court has substantially decided that the col- 
ored person is not a man, but only a thing. He is not a citizen, 
and cannot be one, and has no rights which a white man is bound 
to respect. Our Presidents have indorsed the atrocious sentiment. 
Mr. Buchanan has declared it to be a mystery that the right of 
the white man to hold the colored man in slavery in a territory 
where no law ever established or sustained it, should ever have 
been doubted. Congressional orators have declaimed upon the 
right and duty of the white man to hold the colored man in per- 
petual slavery, and to trade in human beings when and where he 
likes. The Democratic party have borne these doctrines upon 
their flag, and called upon the people to rally under it, and no- 
body has done this more fervently than the Journal of Com- 
merce. The people of Africa and their descendants have been 
pronounced by the federal authorities — from the President and 
their Supreme Judges down to their lowest and meanest tools — the 
proper and lawful plunder of the white man. Hence has arisen 
in fresh and active development the diabolical African slave- 
trade, so long the horror of the civilized world and disgrace of 
humanity. It has come from the efforts of our slave-holding 
politicians, acting through the organization of the Democratic 
party. Thousands, always ready to embark in any scheme that 
promised to minister to their cupidity, have taken advantage of 
this demoralization of the national authorities, and of the moral 
debauchery into which a great and once invincible party has been 



1860] JOURNAL OF COMMERCE'S RESPONSIBILITY. 493 

plunged thereby, and have rushed into the slave-trade, seeking 
shelter for their avarice under the wing of the power that stim- 
ulated its exercise. And they have not sought in vain. That 
shelter has been accorded. The American slave-trader, bringing 
his cargo of victims into our own ports, has found immunity from 
punishment ; and not only this, but he has found countenance and 
sympathy in his villainies in the judgments of our courts, in the 
tone of Presidents' Messages, in discussions in Congress, in dia- 
tribes from professional advocates, in elaborate essays of the press 
and encouraging words from the pulpit, here on the free soil 
of this commercial metropolis. These are the agencies that have 
created the modern American slave-trader, and herein is to be 
found the reason why ' ' the captured slaver is almost sure to es- 
cape in the courts." And for all this the Journal of Commerce 
itself bears a heavy responsibility. 

This disgraceful condition of things especially illustrates the 
powerful necessity of the reforming action of the Republican 
party. That party has to stay the tide of a general demoraliza- 
tion which for years has been encroaching upon the national 
conscience. It has an important duty to discharge in correcting 
the pernicious influence of the examples set by the highest officers 
of the government within the past few years. The progress of 
opinion and of events connected with this African slave trade 
testifies to this necessity, and calls upon all good citizens to aid 
in accomplishing this work. The slave-trade will flourish and 
increase in this country, and over the world, until a check is 
given to the downward course of this government upon the 
whole slavery question. The Republican party can alone arrest 
this declension. It alone will undertake to arrest it ; and until 
this is undertaken our merchants, our navigators, our mariners 
will continue to wallow in the mire of this hideous trade in hu- 
man beings on the African coast, and will justly consider that 
they are countenanced in it by the highest legal, judicial, and 
executive authority of the land.* 

* Hon. Henry Wilson, in his work on the "Rise and Fall of Slavery in 
the United States," says the New York Evening Post published a list of 
eighty-five vessels fitted out at New York for the slave-trade between 
February, 1859, and July, 1860. 



494 CARNIVAL OF THE SCAMPS. [Feb. 

SCAMPS WANTED. 
[From the New York Tribune of February 21.] 

The disgusting business of dragging the politics of oar busi- 
ness men into their trading relations is producing its natural 
effects. The merchants who thought to get an advantage by 
succumbing to the process of explaining their politics, by adver- 
tisements, recommendations, indorsements, and such-like agencies, 
and especially by getting themselves puffed and put into white 
lists in sundry one-horse newspapers at the South, are getting the 
just deserts of their meanness. They have raised a swarm of loaf- 
ers and suckers about their ears that are annoying, persecuting, 
and bleeding them at every turn. A whole crowd of ragged, 
sponging fellows have arisen in the shape of correspondents of 
Southern journals, editors, attaches, drummers for advertisements 
and subscriptions, who surround them like buzzards hovering 
about a wounded buffalo on the prairie. The gentlemen who are 
anxious to be represented in the Southern one-horse press, are be- 
set by these fellows day and night, at their stores and counting- 
rooms, at their houses, at the dining-table, in their bed-chambers, 
in their goings out and comings in, at their risings up and sittings 
down. The curse of frogs and locusts was as nothing to their rag- 
amuffin appeals, their seedy, mendicant importunity. The worst 
of it all is, it is next to impossible to distinguish the real vaga- 
bonds from their counterfeits. Not that there is any essential 
difference in their character, only one may not know enough to 
write a blackmailing paragraph, and the other may. To make 
sure work, therefore, each craven, humiliated wretch of a mer- 
chant who has allowed himself to be entangled in the toils of 
these land-sharks has no other escape but to buy off every fel- 
low who besets him. He shivers in his shoes at every knock and 
every application, and planks down the dust in every case to 
avoid the threatened attack on his business at the South if he 
does not. Not knowing who is who, he pays to all alike. The 
whole crowd of beggars and blackmailers are thus flourishing just 
now, like pigs in clover. 

We give publicity to this fact so that there may be fair play 
among the vagabonds. The poor devils have struck a placer, 
and all should fare alike. "We want them all to come on. Now 



1860] LETTER FROM FITZ-HENRY WARREN. 495 

is their happy time. Now is their feast and carnival. The table 
is spread. The repast loads the board. Money is easy, bills 
plenty, bank checks abundant. If any fellow is hard up, or 
shinning, or dodging corners to shun Ins creditors, let him show 
himself and make his Jack. 

Come on, then, one and all. Come to the gathering, come ; 
come pimps, leeches, swindlers, shysters, ragamuffins, mock- 
auction graduates, counterfeiters, forgers, liars, knaves, cheats, 
blackguards, loafers, jail-birds, dirty dogs of all breeds, every 
moral leper and every accomplished villain ; come to the feast of 
the New York merchants. They will be glad to see you, will 
welcome you, will entertain you, will go down on their marrow- 
bones to you, will pay you freely and liberally for your help, 
for your promises, for your knavery and lies, for every thing you 
can do, and every thing you cannot do, toward getting or sav- 
ing a little Southern trade. Our merchants are paragons of vir- 
tue themselves, but they have opened their doors to the scoun- 
drels. Let this interesting class of our fellow-citizens accept the 
invitation. They will never have a better chance to prey and 
fatten on the upper-tendom of Southern trade. Gentlemen 
scamps, will you please to walk up and help yourselves ? 



[From Fitz-Henry Warren.] 

Burlington, Iowa, February 23, 1860. 

Dear James : I must begin to cultivate Southern pronunciation and 
Southern orthography to prepare for the new Administration. Dana, I 
suppose, is in the sulks at my nonsense ; but I can blackguard you as 
long as I can raise a three-cent postage-stamp to pay for the amusement. 
My main purpose now is to ask you if you do not wish to engage a 
Pike county jeans suit, not of " Tyrian dye," but of emancipation 
butternut bark. Of course that must be the court color and court 
dress. Your bowie-knife and tobacco (pig-tail twist) can be got from 
Virginia. Bayard Taylor can get you a supply when he goes to Rich- 
mond to lecture. 

As you have the nomination of President, won't you allow us out 

here to name the Vice ? We shall name Philip M , of Buffalo, 

gentleman who once turned the government grindstone for the ' ' use and 
behoof" of some dealers in sanded cotton. I should have said that I 



490 THE WIT OF FITZ-HENRY. [Feb- 

have just been reading Dana's article on Bates or Baits — which is the 
true orthography ? 

One word soberly. If I had had my hind quarters kicked to a jelly, 
as you have by the South, I should wait till quite warm weather — say 
the temperature of the " brimstone zone" — before I volunteered to 
advocate a Southern man for the Presidency. I shall not hereafter read 
your essays on Pluck with half so much relish as formerly. 

I am sorry for all this, for I see where we are to drift. 

Governor Seward will be the nominee of the convention, if it is to be 
a choice between him and Bates. 

I am in for the Nexo York Evening Post's doctrine — death if need 
be, but no dishonor. 

Very truly, Fitz-Henry Warren. 

Don't read this to Dana. 



[From Fitz-Henry Warreu.] 

Burlington, Iowa, February 25, 1860. 

Esteemed Individual : I am charged to the muzzle with quinine 
pills, but mind asserts its supremacy over matter. I thank you for your 
letter of 22d ; but I am more cheered and consoled by other events of 
that same day. Pennsylvania knocked Baits ; and Indiana, where Martin 
Colfax has been cross-ploughing and harrowing in the good seed, has died 
(in convention) and made no sign. I agree with you ; take apartments 
for me in the Pitti Palace. My acquaintance with him is slight, but all 
in his favor. I revere, admire, worship, adore pluck ; a stiff backbone 
is worth all the rest of the human anatomy. Let us have an order of 
knighthood established whose cognizance shall be a spinal vertebra on 
a field gules. Brain is nothing compared to the dorsal column. Let 
no man be eligible to the nomination who can take a kick behind with 
no change of countenance perceptible to the spectator in front. I hope 
that will not rule out any of your New York candidates. Will it ? 

I join hands with you on Pitt ; and now, come out and " fight the 
beasts at Ephesus" (Chicago) with me. 

And now, once more. Will you keep me in a stock of speeches ? I 
want Mr. Corwin's, Avho is a splendid talker ; Winter Davis, also, and 
John P. Hale. Never mind : if you are weak and cannot go to the 
capital on foot, take a carriage ; it only costs fifty cents. 

I am glad the Speaker is just what he is when it is necessary to 
take a candidate to please Geo. Briggs and Adrain, when the responsi- 
bility of having the control of the House is one which ought to have 



1860] BRECEENKIDGE EXPLAINS. 497 

been dodged if it could be. I am happy that justice is more nimble- 
footed than usual. 

I saw Pennington and Bates at Washington about the same time, and 
came to an early conclusion that neither of their anxious mothers knew 
they were out. As superb an ass as old P. is, I would rather take my 
chances with him for President than the Missouri pre-Adamite. You 
can understand my horror, then, of such a possible result as making a 
Republican President. Horace is kinky, but what has obfuscated 
Dana ? My suspicion is that Weed does not want Seward, and does not 
intend he shall be nominated, but does want Bates ? He is one of 
Weed's style of men. W. has been a correspondent of his for a long 
time, and Mister Weed could turn the crank and grind out any tune he 
wished. Weed made Fillmore, Fish, and Wash. Hunt. That's my 
theory, and it has to me great plausibility. There would be glorious 
picking at the Treasury for the New York banditti. 

But this is private and very confidential. Use your eyes and your 
nose, and see if there is not something in it. Let me hear from you 
when the fascinations of the federal city can be thrown off. 

I suppose you dine frequently with Mr. Buchanan. Please assure 
him of my tender and abiding affection. 

With compliments to Mrs. P. , 

Very truly, Fitz-Henry Warren. 



MR. BRECKENRIDGE S APOLOGY. 
[From the New York Tribune of Feb. 25.] 

In justice to the Vice-President we publish elsewhere his 
card, taken from the Constitution of Saturday morning, in which 
he denies that he was privy to the assault on Mr. Hickman, on 
which we have heretofore commented. 

We are rejoiced, for the credit of the country, that the Vice- 
President is able thus to exonerate himself from the suspicious 
indications attached to the fact that he was present when Edmund- 
son's assault was made. We are glad also to be able to chronicle 
the fact that Mr. Breckenridge is not in the habit of wearing 
arms about his person. But we have done Mr. Breckenridge no 
injustice, either intentional or unintentional. His is simply the 
old case of Tray being found in bad company. The chief point 
of our comments was, that these assaults, actual and meditated 



4D8 WHERE IS KEITT? [Feb. 

upon Northern members of Congress, are contingent assassina- 
tions, and that whoever engages in them is an assassin in spirit 
and purpose. If Mr. Breckenridge was not cognizant of Mr. 
Edmundson's intention, or was present only by accident, an un- 
armed spectator, of course he is not amenable to our criticism. 
It is impossible that even a tolerably intelligent observer of the 
occurrence should be able to know the actual facts upon which 
our comments turned, without this highly proper confession of 
Mr. Breckenridge. While it exempts him from censure, it in 
no way blunts the force of our general charge or takes the case 
of Mr. Hickman out of the category where we placed it, as illus- 
trative of assassin purposes. This "was the charge we made, and 
this is the charge to which we adhere, and to which we shall ad- 
here, until Mr. Keitt can clear his skirts in the manner in which 
Mr. Breckenridge has done. Let us hear from him that he knew 
nothing about the intended assault, and that he never goes armed 
in the streets of Washington. As to his always happening to be 
present, accidentally, of course, whenever deeds of violence are 
contemplated or perpetrated, it is unnecessary for him to speak. 
Everybody knows about that. 

The thing to which we desire to call public attention, and 
which we denounce and execrate, is assassination — bullying, cow- 
ardly, infamous assassination. The men whom we stigmatize and 
hold up to public odium are the assassins, be they who they 
may. We say, as we have always said, that the confederate as- 
sault on Mr. Sumner in the Senate was one of the most abom- 
inable acts ever recorded in the annals of bullyism. The subter- 
ranean rowdies of the Sixth Ward would cry shame on such a 
transaction within their own purlieus. In that case we saw one 
armed man assail and strike down an unarmed person, while an- 
other armed man stood by as a confederate, ready to aim the fatal 
bullet or plunge the deadly poniard in case the victim should be 
able to offer resistance. Can any thing be more foul than this ? 
The Hickman assault belongs to the same class of attacks. It was 
premeditated contingent assassination on its face. A confed- 
erated attack on a single man means this where the assailing 
parties are armed. It can mean nothing less. 

It is against such diabolical attacks of the armed upon the 
unarmed, or two or more upon one, that we make our protests. 



18G0] THE VERMIN OF SOCIETY. 499 

We denounce them as infamous. They are the bloody manifes- 
tation of a cowardice and a cruelty that disgrace our civilization. 
No man can guard himself against the assassin. Any man can 
be stabbed or shot in the back. Any man may be waylaid, or set 
upon by those who aim to kill him, and they may accomplish 
their bloody purpose before he can have time to resist, be he 
ever so brave and determined. But the actors in such transac- 
tions are the vermin of society who should be ground under its 
heel. 

Let it be understood that in these remarks we have not 
touched upon the question of equal personal combat. Whatever 
our judgment may be upon any bull-dog performances of that 
sort, we are not now referring to them in any way. When a 
man assails his equal upon equal terms — the unarmed against the 
unarmed, or the armed against the armed, each without confed- 
erates, and each with an equal chance — though we may deplore 
and condemn, it is not a case for which which these observa- 
tions are intended. That is a branch of the subject that we leave 
for a suitable occasion. It is not likely to arrive among the fight- 
ing bullies of Congress. We are now asking for a public verdict 
against foul play, against stabs in the back, against confederate 
assaults of armed ruffians upon unarmed representatives of the 
people, against assassination and against assassins. 



[From Horace Greeley. 1 

New York, February 26, 1860. 
Friend P. : Before you say much more about John Bell, will you 
just take down the volumes of the Congressional Globe for 1853-4 and 
refresh your recollection of the part he played with regard to the Ne- 
braska bill ? Will you look especially at his votes, February 6th, on 
Chase's amendment ; February 15th, on Douglas's amendment (the 
present slavery proviso) ; March 2d, on Chase's amendment (allowing 
the people of the Territories to prohibit slavery) ; March 2d, against 
Chase again, etc. It does seem to me that you or I must be mad or 
strangely forgetful about this business. I venture to say that Bell's 
record is the most tangled and embarrassing to the party which shall 
run him for President of any man's in America. And as to his wife's 
owning the slaves — bosh ! We know that Bell has owned slaves — how 



500 LETTERS FROM GREELEY AND DANA. [March 

did he get rid of them ? That's an interesting question. We know- 
how to answer it respecting Bates. 

But I don't care what is done about the nomination. I know what 
ought to be done, and having set that forth am content. I stand in 
the position of the rich old fellow, who, having built a church entirely 
out of his own means, addressed his townsmen thus : 

"I've built you a meeting-house, 
And bought you a bell ; 
Now go to meeting, 
Or go to h — !" 

Yours, Horace Greeley. 

James S, Pike, "Washington City, D. C. 



[From Charles A. Dana.] 

New York, March 3. 
Mt Dear Pike : I reckon that rumor lies this time too. I don't 
know, of course ; but I should need to have strong evidence to make me 
believe those letters were puffs for lcbby use. However, if there is any 
proof let us have it. 

I wish you would come back and go to work here again. Horace 
rather sweats under the toil, and cries for help now and then. You 
might as well stay here till the first of June as not. 

Yours faithfully, C. A. Dana. 



[From Horace Greeley.] 

New York, March 4, 1860. 

Friend Pike : I don't happen to have that $10 to spare to-day ; 
but I'll do the next best thing — I'll double the bet. Do you " take 
it "? You ought to be rejoiced to see your favorite phrase used gram- 
matically for once. 

Why don't you go in for having the printing done by the lowest 
bidder ? There is no other way. 

When you see the Charleston convention in blast, you'll see stars. 
Then you'll see that the people are stronger than Washington City. 
Yours, Horace Greeley. 

J. S. Pike, Esq. 



1860] GREELEY ON BETS—DANA. 501 

[From Horace Greeley.] 

New York, March 5, 1860. 

Friend Pike : Your grammar is perfect. The bet is all right — 
$20 to $20 on Douglas's nomination. Now if you want to go $20 more 
on Seward against the field for our nomination, I take that. I can 
spare the money, for I don't want to go to Chicago, and mean to keep 
away if possible. 

If Douglas shall be nominated, I think Bates will have to be, unless 
we mean to rush on certain destruction. However, we shall see what 
we shall see. 

" Capita] States" and " Labor States" is foolish. Slave States and 
Free States tells the story, and no one can misunderstand it. 

Why don't you go in hard for awarding the printing to the lowest 
bidder ? I should be perfectly willing that Mrs. B. should have it all 
under that rule, if you can get it. Under the present system, I object. 
And a " National Printing Office" would be worse than this. Do 
try to help along some practical reform. I've written Sherman to send 
me a table of the mileage. Then we'll see who votes and how when 
that question comes up, and what they make or lose by it. 

Yours, Horace Greeley. 

J. S. Pike, Esq., Washington, D. C. 



[From Charles A. Dana.] 

New York, March 8, 1860. 

Dear Pike : Horace wants to go off in April, along between the 1st 
and the 10th, to be gone for a week or so, and I write to propose that 
you should get here by the 1st. He is going over Pennsylvania, and 
without your help we can't get along. 

I have had a second letter from Hildreth. He is mending, and 
really writes in good spirits. I infer that he is going to get well. 

The Seward stock is rising, and that will console some of our friends 
for the defeat of the city railroad schemes in Albany. George Law has 
beat all the other speculators, and got a bill through the Senate which 
looks like smothering the whole concern. It charters a road in the 
Seventh Avenue, with forty-eight branches running through every cross- 
street. The great political engineers are aghast at this triumph of their 
opponent. Perhaps they may beat him yet ; but I doubt it. 

Yours faithfully, C. A. Dana. 



502 LETTER FROM MR. GREELEY. [March 

[From Horace Greeley.] 

New York, March 8, 1860. 

Friend Pike : I have bet you $20 on Douglas against the field. So 
far good. Now you say Seward will be our man. Well, I offer you 
$20 on that. I name my man for Charleston and back him against the 
field. You name your man for Chicago, and don't back him against 
the field, as I proposed. Very good. It seems that I have more con- 
fidence in my judment than you have in yours ; so we will stand there 
on the original $20 on Douglas, which I trust you will win ; only, if 
Douglas has no chance, you and Harvey should " poor pussy" him, not 
abuse him. 

F. is one of the poorest and most debauched of the drunken 
sailors that floated ashore from the wreck of Know-Nothingism. He 
is, of course, the very man for a printer to Congress. No honest man 
could get it, for none of that stamp could lie enough. Hence Follett's 
failure in '56, and Defrees's now. Both these are honest men. 

But Gurley's bill to establish a Government Printing-Office is worse 
even than Ford or Bowman or Wendell — worse than all three together. 
It is to establish a national hospital for broken-down editors and 
printers, the jackals of the Camerons, and Bankses and Brights and 
Gwinns of all time. It will be more expensive and more nauseous than 
any thing we have yet known. Every drunken printer and ex-editor 
who won't work, and can't earn a living if he would, will be billeted on 
the public Treasury, and jobs will be invented to keep up a semblance 
of work for them — and very little work will do them. Just see. 

I hope F. will cheat the crowd out of every dollar. If he will do 
this with the impudence of a highwayman, I'll go in for giving him 
another as good thing somewhere. Genius should be encouraged. 

Yours, H. G. 

J. S. P. 



[Prom Salmon P. Chase.] 

Columbus, March 19, 1860. 
My Dear Friend : Your letter came just as an imperious business 
necessity compelled me to go to Cincinnati. Pieturning, I found the 
announcement that it is determined to suspend the publication of the 
Era. The necessity of this step is greatly to be deplored. Surely a 
very little activity among our friends at Washington might have averted 
it. I fear the effect of it upon any attempt to obtain the surrender of the 
certificates in the Chicago Block Property. If I were only able I would 



1860] LETTER FROM MR. CHASE. 503 

myself take the responsiblity of carrying it on through the year ; but 
I am literally exhausted by the expense of my residence here for the 
past four years, coupled with the great depreciation of property in the 
State. 

I regret now that I did not recommend Mr. French to you. Al- 
though not the man to take the helm of the Era exactly, he is prompt, 
talented, and faithful, and might have organized a support which would 
have continued it. I believe I will write to him yet on the subject. 
Meantime please let me know what you are doing or propose to do, 
what propositions are made, if any, etc., etc. 

As to the Chicago nomination, I possess my soul in patience. That 
I shall have some friends outside of Ohio who prefer me to all others, I 
know ; that many more prefer me as a second choice is plain enough. 
What the result will be nobody can tell. If I were certain of the nomi- 
nation I can hardly tell whether I should be more gratified by the con- 
fidence implied in it, or alarmed by the responsibilities and trials which 
it would impose. There seems to be at present a considerable set 
towards Seward. Should the nomination fall to him, I shall not at all 
repine. If the best interests of our cause and country will be best pro- 
moted by it, I shall not only not repine, but shall rejoice. Many, how- 
ever, think he cannot be nominated ; many, that if nominated he 
cannot be elected ; many, that if elected, his administration will divide 
the Republicans, reorganize the Democracy, and insure its triumph. 
Situated as I am, I cannot enter into these speculations, but prefer to 
let opinions form themselves. 

I wish I could come to Washington without seeming to seek votes. 
If I could, I would. There are some things of a business nature I want 
to do, and there are friends I want to see. But I suppose it will not do 
for me at present. I would rather never have a place than seem even 
to be importunate for it. 

Give my best love to the children, and believe me, 

Affectionately and faithfully yours, S. P. Chase. 



[From Horace Greeley.] 

New York, March 20, 1860. 
My Dear Pike : I don't think I am ordinarily a bore ; but now I 
insist that you shall take up a file of the Daily Globe, turn to the dates 
of February 29th, March 6th, and March 7th, and read just what 
W. did and said with respect to the mileage bill. Then see, if 
you will, how gently I growled the first time he began to cut those 



504 FROM MR. GREELEY AND MR. CHASE. [April 

didoes, and how he went on hardening his heart and stiffening his neck to 
the end. I like a manly opponent, who makes a square, stand-up fight ; 
but his were the tactics of a Tombs lawyer defending a mock auctioneer 
or pocket-book dropper. His vote for the bill at last was adding insult 
to injury. If the devil isn't to be allowed to deal with the fellow who 
acts thus, we might as well not have any devil, for I am opposed to 
all sinecures. 

Pike, I know your deadly hostility to all robbery and prodigality in 
the abstract, but you must read those Globes and tell me what you think 
of them. Yours, Horace Greeley. 

J. S. Pike, Esq. 



[Prom Salmon P. Chase.] 

Columbus, April 2, 1860. 

My Dear Sir : Your letter reached me just as I was leaving home, 
and I take the first moments at my command since my return for reply. 

You have doubtless learned ere this that I had anticipated Mr. Sew- 
ard's suggestion by sending to Mrs. B. a list of the subscribers to 
the Chicago Block purchase who have not already assigned to her the 
shares held by them, with a suggestion that some friend in Washington 
write or speak to each suggesting similar transfers. I have no doubt 
that all, or nearly all, will act at once ; and I suppose this property must 
be actually worth even now (say) three thousand dollars. This will cer- 
tainly be some help ; but it cannot be permanent. Nor is it easy to say 
what can be done in the way of permanent help. After the neglect of 
the obvious duty of providing for the Era by the Republican members 
of Congress, it is hard to say what can be expected from political 
friends. If I had power I am very sure I should find a way of testifying 
a proper sense of the worth of the father by giving such honorable em- 
ployment to his sons as would enable them to support the family. In 
time the rise of property at Chicago will, I think, afford a competency, 
with proper efforts and success of the boys so aided. But meanwhile 
what is to be done ? I see no way in which the Era can be made 
available. It will be hard to find anybody who would be willing to take 
its list and supply its subscribers for the good-will ; much harder to find 
anybody to pay anything in addition. But perhaps I am wrong in say- 
ing that I see no way of availing of the Era. Mr. Clapham thinks, I 
understand, that with a vigorous editor associated with himself the paper 
might and could be placed on a paying basis and made profitable. So 



1860] MR. CHASE ON THE "ERA." 505 

it seems to me. If such a person, then, could be found, and the Era 
could be revived in friendly hands, Mrs. B. might start the child's 
paper she proposes with an excellent prospect of success. It seems to 
me certain that a good Republican paper in Washington, seeking no 
public patronage, but taking that which would naturally come to it, 
would not only live but prosper. You with your abilities might from 
such a point do great good — exceedingly great good — with no detri- 
ment, but with advantage, to yourself. To be sure it would require 
work ; but you have the intellectual and physical energy which would 
sustain it. 

Should it be impossible to revive the Era, I will join in whatever 
other plan may be agreed on by our friends at Washington in aid of 
Mrs. B. and her family to the extent of my means. These, however, 
are now so thoroughly exhausted by the heavy drafts made on me by 
the necessary expenses of my position during the last four years (for you 
perhaps know that we have no governor's house, nor rent for one, and 
only a salary of $1800). I cannot advance any money immediately. 
In the course of the year, however, I would do my share. 

If I were to consult my own feelings I should not thus restrict my 
offer ; but I am compelled to bow to absolute necessity. 

I wish there were some way of giving employment to the boys. But 
there is not. Our public employes are wretchedly paid ; but the posi- 
tions, badly compensated as they are, are sought in this time of general 
depression by three applicants at least for every post, and those who 
have them to dispose of think themselves bound to prefer Ohio appli- 
cants. Being myself out of office, I have no influence which would 
sway them to different views or action. 

The neglect of Mrs. B. and the Era by our political friends at 
Washington has produced a deep and painful impression in many quar- 
ters, and may have wide and unhappy influences. It is greatly to be 
deplored on all accounts. 

For myself I have felt for some time an increasing disposition to 
quit political life. It would have been entirely satisfactory to me had 
our friends here in Ohio been willing to allow me to close it with the 
expiration of my term as governor. But they thought that I ought to 
consent to an election to the Senate as an indorsement with reference to 
another place, and I did consent, perhaps unadvisedly. But, having 
consented, I shall abide the issue. The indications are that the choice 
of Ohio will not be confirmed by the Republican preferences of other 
States. Should such be the fact, I shall give an honest, independent 
support to the man whom the Republicans do prefer, and at the close 



506 MR. LOVEJOTS FIERY SPEECH. [April. 

of the struggle feel myself at liberty to consult my own inclination and 
judgment with regard to further public service. 

Cordially your friend, S. P. Chase. 

J. S. Pike, Esq. 



MR. LOVEJOY'S POWERFUL SPEECH. 
[From the New York Tribune.] 

Washington, April 6, 1860. 

Mr. Lovejoy's fiery speech, which created such a sensation in 
its delivery yesterday, is an excellent speech to circulate. It 
presents a view of the peculiar institution and its supporters 
much needed for all inquiring minds. 

The slavery men have boldly challenged the discussion of the 
great opprobrium on its merits. The slave-holders audaciously 
declare that slavery is a good thing. Charles O' Conor says so. 
The New York Herald says so. The Democratic party are very 
generally beginning to say so. The time, therefore, has fully 
come when a faithful and thorough exposition of slavery is de- 
manded. It is no longer out of place. We cannot meet our 
political opponents in any effective manner without doing this. 
The Abolitionists proper have been about this business for many 
years. But the hostility to their agitations and discussions in the 
North has always been placed upon the ground that everybody 
knew and admitted that slavery was a vast evil, and that the fact 
could be made no more plain by harassing and inflammatory 
discussions and expositions. But all this is changed. The 
country is now called to a consideration of slavery on its merits. 
The North is invoked to the support of slavery as a good thing, 
and a most proper condition for a large portion of mankind. It 
is incumbent, therefore, upon those who oppose the spread of the 
nuisance to meet the challenge promptly and fully. And no man 
can now say that the discussion of the slavery question, down to 
its very bottom, in Congress or out, is superfluous. It is strictly 
in order ; and, indeed, it is about the only question in our poli- 
tics that is in order. If we are called upon to let slavery go un- 
molested into the Territories on the ground that it is a beneficent 
institution, we must begin and continue to show up its detestable 
character. If we cannot succeed in establishing that, we have no 
ground upon which to stand in opposing its spread. 



1860] TWO MILLION COPIES NEEDED. 507 

We want, therefore, an indefinite number of such speeches as 
Mr. Lovejoy's, to stand as reasons why we oppose the spread of 
slavery. For all who wish to know why we insist upon keeping 
it within its present limits, such speeches as Mr. Lovejoy's 
furnish the ready answer. For all who desire to be informed 
what slavery is, and what is the answer to the various sophisms 
by which it is defended, Mr. Lovejoy's speech tells the story. 
And it does it in such a graphic and emphatic way that nobody 
can fail of comprehending the subject. Of course an hour's 
speech cannot exhaust the question, or give the statistics in the 
case. It takes a book to do that. This fuller exposition can be 
found in Mr. Helper, of North Carolina. But Mr. Lovejoy, 
being a very full man upon his topic, has managed to produce as 
many daguerreotypes and crayon drawings of slavery, in its vari- 
ous aspects and pretences, as can well be crowded into an hour's 
speech. And the whole is so vitalized by vividness of concep- 
tion and depth of conviction and martyrdom of spirit, that the 
pictures blaze with a fervent heat. 

Of this speech an edition of two million copies should be cir- 
culated. Though it is what is technically termed a violent 
speech, it is yet really a speech of the most truly conservative 
and influential character. Its wit is abundant, and its sincerity 
transparent as the light ; and it is not too much to say that it 
was admired on all sides. The speaker proposes no harsh or vio- 
lent measures in respect to slavery, but is broad and catholic 
and Christian in his views on this branch of the subject. He only 
insists upon his rights, and the rights of all American citizens, to 
discuss that and all other subjects everywhere in the country, and 
to boldly expose the naked facts of the case. For himself, he 
has certainly done his work with unsurpassed power of delinea- 
tion and force of rhetoric. J. S. P. 



THE NEW YORK HEKALD. 
[From the New York Tribune of April 11.] 



The New York Herald republishes my letter on the Con- 
necticut election, and makes it the text of a leading article, in 
which it indulges in its usual perversions. I stated what has 



508 NEW COMBINATIONS IN PARTIES. [April 

long been apparent to every thinking man, that in the mutations 
of our politics we were at last coming to a natural division of 
parties in which the aristocratic elements of society were being 
ranged on one side, and the democratic on the other. It has 
always been evident to every reflecting mind that the alliance 
between the democratic masses of the Free States and the slave- 
holders of the South was an unnatural union that must sooner or 
later come to an end. Their sentiments and interests being 
diverse and antagonistic, they could not always be kept in an 
enforced union. The wonder is that that union has existed so 
long. With this separation of Northern democracy from the 
Southern aristocracy there naturally comes the affiliation of the 
aristocracy of the North with that of the South. This North- 
ern aristocracy is one based on wealth, commerce, and trade. 
It is a money aristocracy merely. 

This general declaration is perverted by the Herald into an 
admission that republicanism is naturally opposed to all the in- 
dustrial interests of the country. And thereupon a discourse of 
characteristic exaggeration and partisanship is preached. I will 
make this misrepresentation the occasion of a few observations, 
elucidating a little further the idea I expressed. 

There exists in every country the aristocratic and democratic 
element of society. Ours is no exception. We have the slave- 
holding and planting aristocracy of the South and the money 
aristocracy of the North. The democratic element of the coun- 
try resides almost wholly in the Free States. They have the 
making of a democratic element in the Slave States, and one day 
it may assume its functions as such ; but at present the non- 
slave-holders of the South have no voice except in unison with 
the slave-burners. They are a degraded and repressed people, 
unlike any other on the face of the earth. They are neither la- 
borers like the slaves, nor idlers like the masters. They hold an 
anomalous position, nominally higher than the slave, but as a class, 
in physical comforts, below them. Ignorant and indolent, 
ground between the upper and lower stones of society, they have 
no standing, no reputation, no character. We regard them as 
the most unhappy class of mortals in the world, with the fewest 
chances for any future of hope, any good time coming. 

The real democracy of the country is thus wholly in the Free 



1860] NORTHERN AND SOUTHERN ARISTOCRACIES. 509 

States. Here we have them fresh, pure, strong, bristling with 
activity, energy, and power, and still militant after every achieve- 
ment. This democracy has made the country what it is. All 
that we have done, all that we are, all of national reputation that 
the country possesses comes of the Free-State democracy. In 
trade, in mechanic industry, in the higher grades of manufac- 
tures, in maritime development, in arts and in arms we are only 
what we are through the growth of that democracy which has 
sprung from the untrammelled expansion of the democratic idea 
in the Free States. Our Northern aristocracy is an after- 
growth, and is the weight democracy is compelled to carry in its 
race. 

Heretofore a large part of this great democratic element has 
been in political affiliation with the slave-owners. This has been 
the case particularly with the rural portions — the reason being that 
the Southern slave-holding aristocracy originally had the advan- 
tage of democratic leaders at the time the elements of our political 
society, in its early stages, first began to crystallize. That very 
association, accidental in its creation, drove the budding aristo- 
cratic developments of trade, commerce, wealth, conservatism in 
the North into political opposition ; and this bastard condition of 
things has continued for half a century, until the force of ideas is 
at length, aided by favoring circumstances, rupturing the connec- 
tion. 

But the slave-holding aristocracy having at length broke 
ground, and blazoned forth their natural and inherent anti-demo- 
cratic sentiments, the two forces are now dividing on funda- 
mental principles. As this work progresses, the aristocratic 
element of the North naturally shifts its position, and, main- 
taining the same attitude towards its natural antagonist in the 
North, it swings into line alongside of its natural ally in the 
South. And this is what I meant in speaking of the re-forma- 
tion of parties on natural divisions. 

The Southern slave-holder having dropped the mask of de- 
mocracy, and now fully asserting the aristocratic sentiment, we 
are entering upon a totally new cycle of our political history, in 
which new combinations are inevitable, and which assume a rad- 
ical character. It would be an interesting inquiry to try to as- 
certain just where we are to land in this transition, if we had 



510 OLD DEMOCRACY BEWILDERED. [April 

time and room for such political speculations. Those who en- 
tertain a steady faith in the democratic idea can have no doubt, 
however, about the general result. In a republic we cannot 
allow it to admit of question, whether in the contest of public 
opinion the aristocratic or the democratic sentiment shall go to 
the wall. We, to be sure, labor under the prodigious disad- 
vantage of having to contend against the dead weight of a large 
number of slave-holding communities, where the free expression 
of thought is inexorably kept down, and where brute force and 
violence are substituted for the ordinary restraints of modern 
civilization. But, even with this disadvantage, our democracy 
must triumph. The money of the North can marshal the bru- 
talities of the North in aid of the man-owning and wrong-doing 
aristocrat of the Slave States. 

The mercenary trading spirit, so far as it has intimate con- 
nection with the South, can also be relied on to sustain that 
aristocracy, however offensive its acts, or however outrageous its 
pretensions. We have not come to the millennium yet, and vast 
masses of mankind will show themselves earthy, sensual, and 
devilish, if they are approached on the side of the pocket nerve, 
even in the great republic. But the great body of the demo- 
cratic masses of the North do not hold these relations to the 
aristocratic elements of our society. They are quite removed 
from and independent of them. And it is their independent 
action that is the stay and hope of republicanism. They at least 
will resist the reaction first set on foot by Mr. Calhoun, and 
now being urged and driven by Heralds that blow discordant 
trumpets — by perverts trained to the sophistication of their own 
understandings, like Charles O' Conor — by political bruisers, 
energetic through corruptions, like Mayor Wood — by selfish and 
degraded influences of all sorts, drunk with the spirit of gain, 
with leaden eyes and the brains of brutes staggering in a moral 
midnight to the assault upon the most precious interests of hu- 
manity, regardless of consequences. In the immediate contest 
before us these are backed by the broken and blended members 
of the old democratic host, always hitherto used to success, but 
now bewildered by defeat and the loss of old leaders, who, for 
want of intelligence, still cling to the empty name of a once true 
and honest party, and marshal themselves in ranks to which they 



1860] TEACHINGS OF KANSAS AND JOHN BROWN 511 

do not belong by sentiment or conviction, and which they must 
ultimately desert, as, little by little, the intelligence of their true 
position dawns upon them. 

There is thus no reason to believe that the reactionary move- 
ment of the time, made on a gross basis of material interests, and 
in bold and open defiance of all humane sentiments, and of our 
cardinal political doctrine of equal rights, can succeed, either in 
the immediate or remoter future before the country. There is 
much more reason for believing that the barbarism of the South 
is undermining its own foundations by provoking this struggle. 
The doctrine of the rights of man is the electric force that has 
shaken empires and toppled down thrones even among the ignor- 
ant and brutalized and oppressed of mankind. How is it to be 
among men born to the inheritance of those rights, appreciating 
their value, and rejoicing in their possession ? "Will not even the 
theoretic denial of them raise a j)rejudice against the classes who 
preach the detestable heresy, that shall first cover them with 
odium and then crush them with obloquy and proscription ? Let 
the reactionists be warned in time that the spirit of democracy in 
this country, if it be once fully roused by an arrogant and oppres- 
sive and aggressive aristocracy, such as is now combining, North 
and South, to deny its principle and fetter its action, will sweep 
like a tornado through the political atmosphere. It will be more 
than wind and rain and lightning and tempest. 

Is the example of Kansas past and Kansas present to go for 
nothing ? Does the John Brown incursion teach nothing ? Is 
the Douglas rebellion, not in all its inspiring motives, but in its 
resulting consequences and intimated popular forces nothing ? 
Is there no indistinct banner seen floating over all these move- 
ments on which is dimly perceived the ancient motto of the 
rights of man ? It is more distinct in some of them than in 
others, we know. Nevertheless that banner floats over all. It 
is the idea it embraces that inspires the actors in each in greater 
or a less degree. 

These indications of the spirit and temper of the Northern 
democracy ought of themselves to be sufficient to warn the re- 
actionists of their future fate. The commercial and trading in- 
fluences of the great cities, and the communities that hold in- 
timate financial relations with them, are strong within their own 



512 REPLY OF THE NEW YORK HERALD. [April 

circles ; but these do not include the great industrial interests of 
the country, or even exhibit a sensible approximation toward 
doing it. The products of the plough, the loom, and the anvil are 
not influenced by political considerations, nor are the producers 
amenable to political tests on any broad scale. The law of sup- 
ply and demand is omnipotent in the main. Ideas will rule on 
their intrinsic merits all through the ordinary departments of in- 
dustry, with but a slight deflection from influences that the reac- 
tionists seem to consider will prove controlling. 

"We are satisfied, then, to see parties range themselves by 
their natural relation as before stated — the aristocratic and despotic 
and reactionary against the democratic and liberal and progres- 
sive. We are content to cast our lot with the latter, and abide 
the fate of the contest. J. S. P. 



[Reply of the Herald.'] 

THE BLACK REPUBLICAN IDEA AND PARTY — ITS UNIVERSALLY DE- 
STRUCTIVE TENDENCIES. 

We give elsewhere to-day another letter from the Tribune's 
Washington correspondence on the true black republican idea. 
In these letters the writer shows himself to be superior to Sew- 
ard, Spooner, Helper, and all the other black republican advo- 
cates, both in his ability to trace an idea through its logical an- 
alysis to its ultimate results, and in his fearless honesty, which 
impels him to acknowledge the destruction which must attend its 
triumph. 

The Tribune writer persists in his idea that parties in this 
country are ranging themselves under "natural divisions ;" and 
assures us that " the mercenary trading spirit" is bringing about 
an affiliation between " the slaveholding and planting aristocracy 
of the South, and the moneyed aristocracy of the North ;" that 
in the coming conflict " vast masses of mankind will show them- 
selves earthy, sensual, devilish, when touched on the side of the 
pocket nerve ;" but that " the rights of the man is the electric 
cry which has shaken empires and toppled down thrones ;" and 
under its banner a black republican movement is on foot which 
will, if it can, " sweep like a tornado through the political at- 
mosphere." 



1860] LETTER FROM MR. COR WIN. 513 

Now, in the essence of these things, though not in the epi- 
thets which he applies, we agree to the dotting of an " i" and 
the crossing of a " t" with the Tribune correspondent's descrip- 
tion of black republicanism and its workings. 



[From Thomas Corwin.] 

Wednesday, 2 p.m. 
Do you go to dine with Bache to-day at five p.m. ? If so, do you 
walk or ride ? If the latter, shall I call at five precisely with a carriage ? 
Mr. Pike, do you not know that you can travel at a cheaper rate with 
one carriage than two ? Answer ine truly by the bearer hereof. 

Thos. Corwin. 
J. S. Pike, Sixth Street. 



[From Count Gurowski.] 

New York, Monday, April 16. 

Dear Yankee : Congratulate Mr. Potter for me from the bottom of 
my heart. 

What is the talk about code of honor ? There is and never was such a 
codification in Europe among the genuine chivalry for these one thousand 
years, neither among nobles of any country of Europe. There is a kind of 
common law which every one knows, and a practice of details which is 
acquired in the same way as by a lawyer. I fought more than thirty duels, 
was second perhaps sixty times at least, and all with gentlemen and noble- 
men, and never heard of code of honor or absolute rule about weapons. 
If there is any code, rule, or common law about it, it is this : that 
cowards only refuse when a weapon magnifies danger. I assisted to 
duels, as second, when one of the combatants, pistols in hand, proposed 
to approach each other from ten paces (the original distance) to three. 
It was accepted. Old and hoary as I am, and never having really seen 
the use of a bowie-knife, I would accept it if I still should insist on 
my reputation as duellist. We Polish nobility, we fight generally with 
short, half-round Turkish swords. It makes ugly gashes, and I saw 
bowels come out once. 

Mrs. Potter is a Spartan lady, and has a true gentleman for a hus- 
band. Greeley is an ass. 

Yours, Gurowski. 



514 LETTERS FROM COUNT QUROWSEI. [April 

[From Count Gurowski.] 

Thursday. 

Damn Yankee : I lose with you all the cold blood in my veins and 
all patience. Why misuse, desecrate, the holiest words and concep- 
tions ? What for I write books and give to you specially long lectures ? 
Again you speak of the two civilizations. Shame ! shame ! If you 
northern wiseacres do not stop such balderdash, I shall be obliged to 
pitch into you all, and expose your ignorance rivalling that ot the South. 
One of the banditti, Wigfall or Iverson, said in the Senate, " the 
South will organize a confederacy or government never yet known in the 
world." Tell him that he is an ass, as they are all. History knows 
already, and has recorded a society, community, and government based 
upon piracy, enslavement, rapine, and slave-traffic. It existed about 
nineteen hundred years ago for the first time, in Kilikia, or Cilicia, in 
Asia Minor, and was destroyed by Pompey (not African). Only the 
Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, Syrians, representants of civilization at that 
era, called the Kilikians pirates, and not a different state of civilization. 
How can you make such confusion and offend the civilized Northern 
villages, operatives, farmers, mechanics ? Atone for it. I suggest to 
you for the next definition to use the expression, two different and 
opposed to each other social conditions, as piracy is a social condition 
after all. How much did T. W T eed get for his pacificatory article ? The 
South will be amazed to hear soon the terrible thunder and malediction 
coming from the other side. Already a forerunner arrived in the 
London Saturday Review, the best and most independent English 
weekly, and a Tory. It answers to the menaces made previous to the 
election. It is splendid, vigorous, and going to the bottom. And what 
will they say when they learn the fact ? 

The Saturday Review takes, in the name of civilization (there is only 
one civilization, recollect that), of Europe and of England, the same 
ground as did the Tribune of November 28th. , Guess who wrote it ? 

My respectful compliments to Mrs. Pike, and my sincere love to my 
young great favorite, Miss Mary. You are not worthy to have such a 
daughter. Tell to Sumner that I regret not to have seen him, but that 
does not interfere with my hearty friendship. 

Good-by. Stand firm, but believe that the going out of the slave 
or cotton States will not ruin the country or the principles. Quite the 
contrary. After one or two years of confusion, unavoidable in every 
transition, the Free States will take a new start, and more grand and 
brilliant than was the past. A body, politic or animal, to be healthy, to 
function normally, must throw out the deleterious poison from its vitals. 



1860] MM. SEWARD LOSES THE NOMINATION. 515 

This is my deliberate conclusion and creed, based on much philosophiz- 
ing within myself, and looking from all points of view on the thus called 
secession. Truth, mankind, liberty, civilization, and manhood will be 

great winners by secession. 

Yours, Gurowski. 



[From Count Gurowski.] 

21 West 22d Street, May 12, 1860. 

My Dear Yankee : I am sorry not to be able to adopt your advice. 
I prefer not to publish it at all, as to do it by the help of Greeley and of 
the Tribune. I have my own personal feeling about it. 

I am sorry to hear that you are so unwell as to be disabled to go to 
Chicago. What is the matter ? You ought to have told me. 

Good-by. The world will not be a bit better if I do not publish 
my book. After all, if it would be a Helper, help would have been 
found. 

Mes amities a Madame. Yours, Gurowski. 



MK. SEWARD S DEFEAT. 
[From the New York Tribune.'] 

Washington, May 20, 1860. 
The excitements of the week over the presidential nomination 
have been very great at the capital. The members of Congress 
generally, though feeling an interest in the result never surpassed 
on any former occasion, have mostly remained at their post of 
duty, carefully abstaining from active participation in the doings 
of the Convention. Almost universally the great concern and 
thought has been for success. This desire has overtopped every 
other, and quite overshadowed all personal considerations. 
While Mr. Seward's ability and services have been cheerfully 
recognized, there was a prevailing sentiment, almost universal 
among the members of both houses, that it would be impossible 
to elect him. This conviction, reluctantly reached after long 
consideration, was most conscientiously entertained, and greatly 
deepened the feeling and anxiety with which the doings of the 
Convention were watched. Mr. Seward was known to be 
strong, not only by virtue of his position as a leading expounder 



516 REGRETS FOR HIS DISAPPOINTMENT. [May 

of the principles of the Republican organization, but also as the 
representative of powerful material interests centering in New- 
York, and as the focus of extensively ramified political combina- 
tions. His own ardent desires and confident expectations, which 
all were sorry to see thwarted, formed another extraneous 
source of strength that it was felt would have great weight in a 
Convention of sympathizing friends. Altogether I may say the 
feeling among the Republicans of Congress, with few exceptions, 
was rather that of apprehension of his nomination than any other. 
The least whisper of the proceedings at Chicago, as the time of 
nomination approached, was listened to with eager interest and 
the most painful anxiety. Not a breath of intelligence, real or 
fabricated, but was scanned with keen eye and subjected to 
searching analysis, with a view as well to discover what was as 
what would be. And at last, when the time came, and it was 
announced that a telegraph had been received, saying Mr. Lin- 
coln had been nominated by two majority over Mr. Seward, 
there was a feeling of relief experienced, and an expression of 
general satisfaction that seemed to be unanimous. But in no 
quarter was it mingled with one particle of exultation, but every- 
where with a sentiment of regret at the necessity which impelled 
the result. For it was known how deeply the heart of Mr. Sew- 
ard was set upon the nomination, and how utterly confident he 
was of receiving it. He had left the city but a few days before, 
announcing to his friends that his senatorial duties were ended, 
and that he left the Senate in his capacity of senator for the last 
time. Such, too, had been his bearing throughout the session. 
He had a thousand times declared his aims and expectations of 
being the Republican candidate, and had settled into the fixed 
habit of regarding his nomination as an absolute certainty. He had 
entertained largely, and everybody had partaken pleasantly at his 
hospitable receptions. Kindly and genial, with no more than a 
natural assumption consequent upon his confidently anticipated 
honors, Mr. Seward had certainly no jjersonal enemies among the 
Republicans of Congress. It may be easily conceived, therefore, 
with what personal regrets the political satisfactions of Mr. Lin- 
coln's nomination were received. It could not in the nature of 
things be otherwise ; for no man desired, per se, that Mr. Seward 
should be disappointed. 



1860] OBJECTIONS TO HIS NOMINATION. 517 

Notwithstanding the result, Mr. Seward was at once the 
choice of the politicians and the people. The great body of 
ardent Republicans all over the country desired to elevate to the 
Presidency the man who had begun so early and had labored so 
long in behalf of their cardinal doctrines. This was unquestion- 
ably their earnest wish. But along with this feeling there was 
another quite as strong among them. This was to win the presi- 
dential battle. They thought much of Mr. Seward, but they 
thought more of the cause of which he had been so largely a 
spokesman. They were, for the most part, ready and willing, 
and even desirous to go for the man for President who was most 
likely to succeed, whoever it might be. It was otherwise with 
the politicians who had attached themselves to Mr. Seward's for- 
tunes. They had their own personal ends to serve, and they 
preferred a poor chance with him to a good one with another 
candidate with whom they had no politico-personal affiliations. 
It was this class of men who, to a very great extent, insisted at 
Chicago upon Mr. Seward's nomination, against the wise and 
unselfish convictions of a decided majority of the body, that he 
would not be the strongest nominee. If it had not been for this 
class of men, the popular preference for Mr. Seward as a candi- 
date would have been yielded, certainly with regret, but as surely 
almost without a struggle. Not that Csesar was loved less, but 
Pome more. 

The objections to Mr. Seward as a candidate (I speak of 
Washington) were twofold. In the first place, there was that 
leading objection, familiar to all the country, that he held the 
most advanced position on the slavery question, and, whether 
justly or unjustly, is no matter, is associated in the public mind 
with the idea of extreme radicalism on that subject. Then it 
was known that he held a more clearly defined position of antag- 
onism to the various elements of which the opposition is com- 
posed, outside of Republicanism pure and simple, than almost 
any other man in the party. He had, for example, fought the 
American or Know-nothing element with great explicitness. 
That portion of the opposition in such States as Pennsylvania, 
New Jersey, and New York was believed to be irrevocably op- 
posed to him. In addition to this the South and the Northern 
pro-slavery journals, had charged him with being the great 



518 MR. SEWARD A NEW YORKER. [May 

offender against the peace and harmony of the country, the most 
radical and dangerous of all men ; and in this way had filled the 
public mind, and especially the commercial and conservative cir- 
cles, with all manner of unfounded suspicions and prejudices in 
regard to him. These were things which all the world knew and 
recognized, and had their weight even in the most remote rural 
districts. 

But there was another class of objections that weighed even 
more heavily among those more familiar with public affairs 
which are not widely known, and which have never been publicly 
commented on, from prudential considerations. These objec- 
tions refer to Mr. Seward's principles and practices in regard to 
the public administration of affairs. He is a New Yorker and 
belongs to the New York school. If he does not by natural in- 
stinct, he does by position and association. He is a believer in 
the adage, that it is money makes the mare go. At least he acts 
on the belief, and always has done so since he has been in Con- 
gress. There have been many complaints of Mr. Seward for his 
uniform votes for lavish expenditure, general and particular, but 
never any for being too prudent or fastidious. Mr. Seward has 
acquired great strength among a powerful and influential class 
by his uniform liberal voting upon all money questions. And 
this is a source of influence of a commanding character at all po- 
litical conventions, while it is a source of unquestionable weak- 
ness in a popular canvass. It has been felt, therefore, that, in 
the approaching election, the Republicans, with Mr. Seward for 
their candidate, would lose an immense advantage which the 
venality and extravagance and corruptions of this Administration 
have put into their hands. It was also felt that Republican suc- 
cess, with a prospect, or at least the fear of a continuance of a 
similar style of administration, would be too dearly purchased. 
The future and its malign results were deeply apprehended by 
those who felt profoundly the absolute and inexorable necessity 
of inaugurating a Republican Administration which should be 
not only pure but unsuspected at this already-signalized era of 
political prodigality and corruption. The opposition to Mr. 
Seward's nomination has thus, to a very considerable extent, 
been in the interest of purity and integrity of administration, as 
well as to secure an immediate triumph. Not that anybody would 



1860] THURLOW WEED. 519 

pretend that Mr. Seward was in the remotest degree to be sup- 
posed a man of venal or corrupt instincts or purposes, but only 
that his circumstances would be his master. Such is a candid 
statement of fact, which it is but just should now be made. 

J. S. P. 



[From the Albany Evening Journal, Thurlow Weed, Editor.] 

We do not, of course, deny Mr. Greeley's " right " to do as 
he pleases. But standing as he does, at the helm of an overshad- 
owing public journal, and exercising vast power in shaping and 
guiding popular opinion, we are inquiring whether it was like 
Mr. Greeley, or worthy of the Tribune, to lay so long in am- 
bush ? 

We knew that the associate editors of the Tribune (Messrs. 
Dana and Pike) were early, actively, and personally opposed to 
Mr. Seward. "We knew that Mr. Greeley, even before he went 
to California, expressed the opinion that that gentleman could 
not be elected. But we did not then know, or even believe, that 
with him ' ' the wish was father to the thought. ' ' Accustomed 
for more than twenty years to rely implicitly upon the ' ' sincerity 
and good faith" of Mr. Greeley, we did not doubt that his views 
in relation to Governor Seward's availability, like the views of 
others, would conform to the popular sentiment of his party ; 
and when, two months ago, that sentiment became general ; 
when State after State, with unanimity and emphisis, declared 
for Governor Seward ; and when a politician of Mr. Greeley's 
experience and knowledge was scarcely at liberty to doubt the 
result, we did not expect to encounter his obstinate opposition. 



[From Horace Greeley.] 

New York, May 21, 1861. 
Pike : Your Maine delegation was a poor affair ; I thought you had 
been at work preparing it for the great struggle ; yet I suspect you left 
all the work for me, as everybody seems to do. Massachusetts also was 
right in Weed's hands, contrary to all reasonable expectation. I cannot 
understand this. It was all we could do to hold Vermont by the most 
desperate exertions ; and I at some times despaired of it. The rest of 



520 LETTERS FROM HORACE GREELEY. [June 

New England was pretty sound, but part of New Jersey was somehow 
inclined to sin against light and knowledge. If you had seen the Penn- 
sylvania delegation, and known how much money Weed had in hand, 
you would not have believed we could do so well as we did. Give 
Curtin thanks for that. Ohio looked very bad, yet turned out well, 
and Virginia had been regularly sold out ; but the seller couldn't 
deliver. We had to rain red-hot bolts on them, however, to keep the 
majority from going for Seward, who got eight votes here as it was. 
Indiana was our right bower, and Missouri above praise. It was a 
fearful week, such as I hope and trust I shall never see repeated. I 
think your absence lost us several votes. 

But the deed is done, and the country breathes more freely. We 
shall beat the enemy fifty thousand in this State — can't take off a single 
man. New England stands like a rock, and the North-west is all ablaze. 
Pennsylvania and New Jersey are our pieces de resistance, but we shall 
carry them. I am almost worn out. 

Yours, Horace Greeley. 

James S. Pike, Esq., Somewhere. 



[From Horace Greeley.] 

New York, May 25, 1860. 

Pike, My Friend : Do you see how the heathen rage ? How the 
whole weight of their wrath is poured out on my head ? Will you tell 
me why Maine behaved so much worse at Chicago than any New-Eng- 
land State but Massachusetts ? What meant that infernal vote from 
Massachusetts against us ? I thought some of you Eastern folks would 
look to this. Just write me one letter to let me know what all this 
means. Yours, Horace Greeley. 

J. S. Pike, Esq. 

LAST NIGHT OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY. 

Prose by Witness— I say, Bill, I have got agin' a snag. 

Poetry by Mr. CJwate— On that fatal Friday night, in a flood of tears, his hopes 
went out like a candle. 

Baltimore, Saturday, June 23, 1860. 
The fatal Friday night to the Democratic party has come and 
gone. The culminating point of all its throes was reached last 
evening at seven o'clock. On the reassembling of the Convention 



I860] EXPLOSION OF DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION. 521 

at that hour it proceeded to determine whether it would recon- 
sider its action by which it admitted the Douglas delegates from 
Alabama and Louisiana. New York had hesitated at the morn- 
ing session about adhering ; but the evening found the delegates 
firm, and this settled the question. On the commencement of 
the vote by which the Convention refused to reconsider their 
former vote, several gentlemen sprang to the floor and great con- 
fusion reigned for several minutes. All the while the tall, spare, 
dark form of Mr. Russell, of Virginia, stood immovable midway 
in the Convention, occasionally saying, ' ' Mr. President. ' ' 
Others talked and the presiding officer ruled and explained, and 
various gentlemen objected, but still Mr. Russell stood. Little 
by little the confusion dwindled till at length it seemed Mr. 
Russell would not be allayed without utterance, and the Con- 
vention relapsed into silence to listen to what he had to say. In 
a few grave and measured words he proceeded to announce that a 
large majority of the Virginia delegation had instructed him to 
announce that they should no longer participate in the proceed- 
ings of the Convention, and bade him express their respectful 
adieu to that body. 

This was the long-expected and anxiously-awaited turning- 
point in the fate of the Convention, and the announcement was 
received in perfect silence. The stillness was, however, but 
momentary. The ice was broken and it was now known what 
was to follow. Virginia was merely the advance-guard of the 
body of the Seceders. Mr. Russell stated that of thirty dele- 
gates from his State twenty-five would now retire. Mr. Ander- 
son, of North Carolina, followed, and after deploring the circum- 
stances that ruptured the Democratic party and wrecked its fu- 
ture hopes, gave notice that sixteen out of twenty delegates on 
the floor of the Convention felt themselves constrained to with- 
draw. Mr. Ewing, of Tennessee, succeeded him, and in brief 
and moderate terms deprecating and lamenting the crisis which 
the Convention had reached, proceeded to say that the delega- 
tion from his State would retire to consult on the great issue 
before them, but he could give no assurance and felt no hope 
that a majority could longer remain. He subsequently an- 
nounced that the result of their deliberations was the withdrawal 
of nineteen out of the twenty- four delegates from that State. 



522 SPEECHES IN DETAIL. [June 

After Mr. Ewing, Mr. Caldwell, of Kentucky, rose and lamented 
the desperate condition of the Democratic party, and remarked 
that the delegation from that State, fully appreciating the solemn 
circumstances of their position, would consult further before de- 
termining upon what course to pursue. Mr. Johnson, of Mary- 
land, followed in funereal strain, and stated that " a portion" 
of the Maryland delegation would follow the footsteps and the 
fortunes, and share the fate of the Sunny South, not remarking 
that at this particular moment the aspect of things in that quarter 
was particularly cloudy. 

The Convention listened patiently to all these proceedings, 
though there was an occasional growl at their being wholly out 
of order. But the cry was, " Hear what they have to say." 
"Let's have it all out," and the like, and so the Convention 
gave a tacit consent to the irregularity, with only occasional 
bursts of impatience. 

Following Mr. Johnson came Mr. "Watts, of Tennessee, who, 
in animated terms, announced his own purpose, and the purpose 
of several of his colleagues, to remain in the Convention. A 
colleague, Mr. Jones, concurred, and declared he did not believe 
he had any authority from his constituents to go out, or do any 
thing else toward breaking up the Democratic party. 

California now came forward, in the person of Mr. Smith, 
who had either been dining or is constitutionally loose, wordy, 
and pugnacious, and observed that his State viewed the present 
sacrifice and destruction of the Democratic party with a bleeding 
and a broken heart, and, as it was his habit to call things by their 
right names, he denounced and execrated the assassins who now 
stood grinning before him at the ruin they had accomplished. 
Smith grew so voluble and impertinent that great confusion 
arose, and after being repeatedly interrupted and called to order, 
he was finally very unwillingly forced to take his seat. Smith 
being squelched, Governor Stevens, the delegate in Congress 
from Washington Territory and a representative of Oregon, 
arose to speak for that youngest member of our Confederacy. 
The Governor enlarged upon the melancholy duty he had to per- 
form, and thought it very ominous that our Western empire 
was here broken away from old connections, and that it denoted 
fearful results for the future. He then said good-by for Oregon. 



1860] AN EXUBERANT SLAVE-TRADER 523 

Mr. Moffat, of Virginia, now rose, after several previous 
gettings and surrenderings of the floor, to speak for the remnant 
of the Old Dominion, who stuck by the wreck. He declared 
the vast solemnity of the crisis, but thought on the whole he 
would stop. Missouri, through Mr. Clark, of Helper book no- 
toriety, asked time for that State to consult. But some one of his 
eager colleagues afterward rose and declared he intended to stay 
anyhow, and wanted no time to consider. "Whereat Mr. Clark 
said, as that intimation might put him in a false position, he de- 
sired to remark, that he wanted no time for himself, for he had 
made up his mind to hold on, too. 

Here Mr. Gaulding, of Georgia, got the floor, and after say- 
ing that he did not belong to either of the houses of York or 
Lancaster in his State, proceeded to announce his purpose to 
stay in the Convention, and to advertise himself as being a 
"nigger man," and said lie gloried in the term. He avowed 
himself the owner and raiser and breeder of " niggers," and de- 
clared it to be the most honorable, humane, and praiseworthy 
business a man could follow. He praised Virginia and blessed her 
for being a ■ ' slave-breeding' ' State. Upon this a Virginia del- 
egate fired up and called Mr. Gaulding to order in sharp tones. 
Mr. Gaulding said he meant no offence, and would withdraw the 
term and apply it to himself and his own State. He said he was 
a " nigger-breeder, " and Georgia was a "nigger-breeding" 
State," and he gloried in the business. For himself he was 
perfectly satisfied with the position of the Douglas Democracy 
on slavery. It gave the slave-holders all they needed and all they 
desired. He spoke by authority, for no man in all Georgia 
owned more " niggers" than he did. He then avowed himself 
in favor of reopening the African slave-trade, and said the busi- 
ness was thriving, and he had a lot of fresh native Africans on 
his plantation and wanted more. It is to be hoped that Douglas 
men will circulate a large edition of Gaulding's speech in the 
coming campaign. 

After Gaulding Mr. "Whitney, of Massachusetts, rose and said 
that, in view of the melancholy state of affairs, sixteen of the 
delegates from that State, out of twenty-six, desired to retire from 
the Convention for consultation. Claiborne, of Missouri, fol- 
lowed in a spread-eagle speech for Douglas, when the Conven- 



524 END OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY. [Aug. 

tion, having become wearied by long excitement, adjourned at 
eleven o'clock p.m. And thus ended the Democratic party ! 

J. S. P. 



[From Count Gurowski.] 

Friday, July 13, 1860. 

My Dear Yankee : My book is nearly finished, but, as of old, the 
Tribune played me false. My self-respect makes it imperative to avoid 
any contact with the Tribune, and certainly I shall not ask any favor, 
any notice. Mercantile speculation was scarcely a secondary view in my 
labor, and, poor as I am, I shall try if a conscientious and (T can say it 
without conceit, such as few would have done) intellectual production 
cannot reach the people without the to-be-begged support of an arrogant 
press. Yours, Gurowski. 



[From Horace Greeley.] 

New York, August 13, 1860. 

Friend Pike : I very cheerfully contribute this $20 toward the 
Maine election fund, providing that you will see it honestly expended. 
I don't trust the average run of Maine politicians, who are thievish 
(even the priests) and beggarly (even the leading editors). They are a 
poor lot, and will swallow all the funds they can get hold of. 

I did not know nor suspect what Dana's opinion was on the point in 
dispute, but I consider him a better judge than Old Buck or dishing. 

I shall be greatly disappointed as well as grieved if you lose your 

district. Think of Frank Blair, and be ashamed of your doubts and 

quickened in your works. 

Yours, Horace Greeley. 

James S. Pike, Esq., Calais, Maine. 



[From Count Gurowski.] 

Morrisania, August 31, 1860. 

My Dear, Dear Yankee : I got your letter. How can you be so 
tendei -hearted and take seriously my silly abusing you ? It was only to 
tease. Know it once for all, that you are among the few whom I 
never doubt. I hope ardently, too, that you will succeed for your 
brother. 

Good-by, good-by. Gurowski. 

If you make speeches, put me in as Sumner did ; will be a capital 
advertisement. I begin to be Yankee. Gur. 



1860] LETTERS FROM MR. FESSENDEN. 525 

[From Senator Fessenden.] 

Portland, September 2, 1860. 

My Dear Pike : I have been absent all the week, and on my 
return find your letter of the 29th. My opinions coincide somewhat 
with yours, though I can hardly believe ... so much of a scoundrel 
as to wish your district lost. The State Committee have not, I am 
informed, sent one dollar to this district. They offered us Burlingame 
for one evening, and the chairman of our District Committee says we 
shall have to pay him. When B. was here on his way to Belfast, he 
said that he had no engagements after that week, and agreed to speak 
at several places in this vicinity the week following. I urged him to 
do so, at the request of committees. Soon after, Stevens and Blaine 
loaded me down with letters and telegrams, complaining that he was 
taken out of their hands, and that he was needed in your district, say- 
ing, moreover, that you and Fred complained of neglect, and that the 
district was in danger. This was the first intimation I had of any 
danger in the First, or that it had not been taken care of, and I im- 
mediately wrote and telegraphed my willingness and advice that he 
should go to you at once, as we could get along without him. He is 
with you, and, I hope, is doing good service. 

We are having a terrible fight here, and until Blaine wrote me about 
Burlingame, I supposed, as did we all, that our district was the battle- 
ground, and that yours was all right. My brother Sam writes that the 
Third is safe beyond a peradventure. He has fought his own battle, 
with the exception of a few speeches from outsiders. 

Yours always truly, W. P. Fessenden. 

J. S. Pike, Esq. 



[From William Pitt Fessenden.] 

Portland, September 12, 1860. 

My Dear Sir : All yours received. We are covered all over with 
glory. I congratulate you and Fred, and everybody else in general and 
particular. 

I was anxious about Fred's election on many accounts. The intel- 
ligence I received was not flattering, particularly from Hancock. His 
nomination was said to be not satisfactory in Bucksport and vicinity, 
on account of some local feeling, and as they pressed me very strongly 
to come down and see if I could allay it, I took boat Friday nigbt, and 
spoke there on Saturday, doing what I could outside by coaxing and 
swearing. Tuck writes me to-day, giving the vote, and says that I did 



^ 



52G LETTER FROM FITZ-HENRY WARREN. [Dec, 1860 

tlicm good service in various ways. At any rate, the vote is satisfac- 
tory. Fred leads, I see, instead of falling behind. 

I went to Bangor on Sunday, was taken sick, and had to send for 
a doctor, but got home on Monday in season to vote, and then went to 
bed, where I lay until this morning. I am up to-day, and hope to be 
out again to-morrow, if the weather will allow. 

The truth is, I was not in a condition to take any part in the cam- 
paign, but nobody would believe it. Our great success must cure me, 
however, if there is a spark of vitality left. 

Now, let other States do their duty, and the rascals are wiped out. 
Yours, as always, W. P. Fessenden. 

J. S. Pike, Esq. 



[From Fitz-Henry Warren.] 

Burlington, Iowa, December 16, 1860. 

James Pike : I am fructified in spirit to see "J. S. P." again at 
the foot of a Washington letter. How are you, and where have you 
been ? I should have written to you a long time ago, but I have been 
busy all the season " crying in the wilderness," and to some purpose, 
too, for we have done a large business in Iowa as well as in the 
" inductive" State of Maine. 

Being at a safe distance from South Carolina and Georgia, I look 
on very calmly. Several gentlemen are to be killed before my turn 
comes. Oh for an hour of Old Hickory or Old Zach ! Are we to have 
turbulent times ? I do not exactly see the end, for I am ignorant what 
the new Administration is to be. Let Abraham put in Corwin for Sec- 
retary of Treasury ; Pennington, Secretary of the Interior ; and Colfax, 
Postmaster-General, and we shall have a lovely time. That committee, 
with C. for chairman, will have an illustrious labor and parturiate a 
generation of mice. 

Give me a letter occasionally, with a history of the green-room 
rehearsals and other items. 

Who is to be senator from Maine ? 

Very truly, your friend, Fitz-Henry Warren. 

James S. Pike, Esq. 






